The name of the ship on which the Mikit falcons served. sea wind

Study at the Smolensk real school

When the boy was ten years old, his father took him to Smolensk and enrolled him in the Alexander Real School. “From the usual silence of the forest, from the dear hunting freedom and calm home comfort,” said Ivan Sergeevich, “I found myself in a noisy, bustling city, in the monotonous, official atmosphere of the school.”

Life in the city, daily visits to a dull school seemed like hard labor to him. The happiest times were trips home, to the village, for winter and summer holidays.

The young man studied mediocrely and only in two subjects - natural science and drawing, which he truly loved - he invariably received good grades. WITH fourth grade He became interested in theater, although he was not distinguished by any acting abilities, and acted as an extra in various troupes that came to Smolensk on tour.

Sokolov-Mikitov's stay at the school coincided with a difficult time for Russia - with the defeat of the first Russian revolution and the dark period of reaction that followed. Naturally, the young man, whose sympathies were always on the side of the oppressed and disadvantaged, could not remain indifferent to the turbulent political events. He openly admired people who tried to fight reaction, attended secret gatherings of revolutionary youth, and read with interest the lines of revolutionary leaflets and proclamations. Based on the denunciation of the provocateur, the police searched his room, and “on suspicion of belonging to student revolutionary organizations,” Sokolov-Mikitov was expelled from the fifth grade of the school with a “wolf ticket.”

Expulsion from the school was the biggest turning point in the life of Ivan Sergeevich. From death, from the abundant sad fate of many desperate young people, he was saved by his nature, sensitivity and love of his father, who helped him in difficult times of his life to maintain faith in people, in himself and in his strength.

After being expelled from school for about a year, Ivan Sergeevich in his native Kislovo read a lot and voraciously. With books under his head, covered with an old overcoat that smelled of horse sweat, he slept in the open air, in the garden.

Communicating with people, Ivan Sergeevich thought and reflected a lot. The words were keenly remembered, I was amazed by the talent of the common people, the wealth vernacular. With youthful ardor, he painfully experienced injustice, inequality of people, felt the sharpness of contrasts: poverty and wealth, hunger and contentment. And I came to know and see more and more the diverse, very complex and multifaceted life of the village, so little known to city people.

Studying in St. Petersburg and fateful acquaintances

In 1910, Sokolov-Mikitov came to St. Petersburg, where he entered four-year private agricultural courses, the only educational institution, where they accepted without certificates and without “certificates of political reliability.”

However, he did not feel much attraction to agronomy and devoted all his free time to reading the books of the historian Pogodin and Leo Tolstoy, Gorky and Bunin, who were popular in those years in Smolensk, and A. Remizov, who was popular in those years. In the works of A. Remizov, Ivan Sergeevich met the world of folk tales, so familiar to him from childhood. He tries to write himself. Decides to quit courses and study literature. This was facilitated by the established literary acquaintances.

Once, in a small tavern on Rybatskaya Street, which was eagerly visited by students and journalists, Sokolov-Mikitov met the famous traveler and naturalist Z.F. Swatosh and, despite the age difference, quickly became friends with him. They shared a common love of nature and a passion for travel. Having learned that the young man was engaged in writing, Svatosh introduced him to the famous writer Alexander Green, and a little later to A.I. Kuprin, with whom Sokolov and Mikitov established warm friendly relations.

A. Green was one of the first who taught Sokolov-Mikitov to love and understand the sea, which later took a strong place in his life and work. He knew many of Kuprin's stories by heart, learned from them a living language, precise and laconic, captivating the reader with the power and freshness of his colors.

Having met the owner of the Revel Leaflet, Lippo, Sokolov-Mikitov willingly accepted the offer to become an employee of his newspaper and in the winter of 1912 he moved to Revel to the position of editorial secretary. At first, newspaper work completely captured the novice writer - he works as a feuilletonist, editorial secretary, daily writes editorials and correspondence on a variety of topics, and acts as the author of short stories and essays.

Revel in those days was a fairly busy seaport. Living near the sea further intensified the desire for distant travels.

A deacon from the Church of St. Nicholas the Sea, who brought notes to the newspaper, having learned about Sokolov-Mikitov’s passion for the sea, through connections at the naval headquarters helps him get a job as a sailor on the messenger ship “Mighty”. Sokolov and Mikitov set off on their first sea voyage on it. The impression he made was amazing; it confirmed the young man’s decision to become a sailor and marked the beginning of his sea wanderings.

Sokolov - Mikitov traveled almost all seas and oceans, visited Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Greece, England, Italy, the Netherlands, Africa. He is young, full of strength and health: “It was the happiest time of my life.” youthful life, when I met and met ordinary people, and my heart trembled with the fullness and joy of feeling the open spaces of the earth.” And wherever he was, wherever his sailor’s fate took him, he was primarily interested in the life of ordinary working people.

He later recalled with warm feeling these years, when “his heart trembled from the fullness and joy of feeling the open spaces of the earth.” This is how his “sea stories” were born, in which there is so much sun, salty wind, landscapes, foreign coasts, the noise of oriental bazaars, living portraits of people with whom everyday work brought him closer.

First World War caught Sokolov - Mikitov on a voyage abroad. With great difficulty he managed to return to Russia. Upon his return, he spent several months with his relatives in the Smolensk region, and at the beginning of 1915 he returned to Petrograd. There's a war going on and the young man decides to go to the front, for which he enrolls in the Brothers of Charity course. However, the young man still devotes all his leisure time to literary pursuits.

In 1916, in the literary and artistic collection “Gingerbread”, published by A.D. Baranovskaya in favor of orphaned children, stories by I.S. were published. Sokolova - Mikitova “The Spring Haste”, “Cuckoo’s Children”. In this collection, consisting of works of minor and little-known writers, such writers as A. Blok, S. Yesenin, A. Akhmatova also took part.

In the same 1916, the first fairy tale by Sokolov and Mikitov, “The Salt of the Earth,” was published. Written based on Russian folklore, it revealed the eternal theme of national happiness, expressing the writer’s aspirations about the time when everything dark and evil on earth disappears in the rays of the never-setting sun.

In addition to this big theme, there was another in the fairy tale - that all phenomena in nature are interconnected and it is impossible to disturb the harmony of this relationship, since one without the other is doomed to death: “where there is water, there is a forest, and where the forest is cut down, there and the water dries up."

After leaving the course, Sokolov - Mikitov volunteered to join the active army. He is appointed as an orderly to the sanitary transport detachment of the Princess of Saxe-Altenburg, in which pro-German sentiments reign. The command, without hesitation, indulged open and secret German agents. Sokolov-Mikitov was openly indignant at the betrayal and after several skirmishes with his superiors he was expelled from the detachment.

After graduating from the aircraft mechanics course, he joined the Airship Squadron as a junior mechanic on the Ilya Muromets bomber, whose commander was the famous pilot, fellow Smolensk countryman Gleb Vasilyevich Alekhnovich.

In the essay “Glebushka”, written in the newspaper “Birzhevye Vedomosti”, Sokolov-Mikitov wrote about his commander like this: “Many aviators became aviators out of the blue, because of fashion, by accident. Glebushka has bird blood. Glebushka was born in a bird's nest, he was born to fly. Take away the song from the poet, and the flying from Glebushka, and both will wither.”

Sokolov-Mikitov was one of the first Russian writers at the dawn of aeronautics to develop a “flight landscape” in literature. He gave an artistic description of the earth from a bird’s eye view and spoke about the extraordinary sensations of the conquerors of the sky: “Flight is swimming, only there is no water: you look down, as you looked at the cloudy sky overturned in the mirror surface. This is the awakening of the “bird” in a person, giving a feeling of extraordinary happiness, a prehistoric memory of the time when a person flew on his own wings over a dense land covered with water and forests.”

After the February Revolution I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov, as a deputy from the front-line soldiers, comes to Petrograd. He is transferred to the 2nd Baltic Fleet Crew. Throughout the summer and autumn of 1917 he lived in Petrograd, by the will of fate he found himself in the thick of political events. He speaks at soldiers' rallies and talks about the ugly truth of the war, publishes front-line essays and sketches in progressive newspapers and magazines. At the same time, he willingly attends literary debates and continues to meet with A. Green and M. Prishvin.

M. Prishvin worked for the newspaper “Will of the People” and edited the literary supplement “Russia in the Word”, in which he invited Sokolov-Mikitov to collaborate. Constant communication with each other, debates about the educational value of literature, a negative attitude towards the war, which both saw with their own eyes, considered hostile to man, and therefore hostile to life in general - all this brought the writers even closer together and strengthened their relationship.

In the hot October days, Sokolov-Mikitov, captured by revolutionary events, listens to the speeches of V.I. Lenin in the Tauride Palace, meets with A.M. Gorky. Gorky reacted sympathetically to his literary experiments, helped good advice, and from now on it is clear to Ivan Sergeevich that literature is the main work of his life.

The revolution was the final turning point in his life: Sokolov - Mikitov became a writer. He embodied his unwavering desire to wander, his keen interest in the people he met along the paths of life, in the precise and expressive prose of an enthusiastic and captivating narrator. Bottomless wanderings in foreign lands with an unquenchable longing for his homeland in his soul gave him material for “Chizhikov Lavra” - a sad story about people thrown into a foreign land by force of various circumstances.

Excellent knowledge of the Russian Smolensk village - and in its pre-revolutionary times, and in the initial years of the October formation - captured in a whole series of stories about people of the old new soul, about the fundamental changes taking place in the rural wilderness, about the struggle of contradictory and hostile principles in the minds of its inhabitants. The author speaks about this period in his creative biography: “In those years, I was very closely connected with the village, I hunted, wandered around a lot with a gun and wrote down something, jokingly and seriously, “from nature.” As always, I was amazed by the vitality of the Russian person, his natural humor, intelligence, and penchant for invention.”

At the beginning of 1918, Sokolov-Mikitov demobilized and left for the Smolensk region. He looked with interest at the new things that were entering the life of the village, significantly changing its appearance.

With a gun on his back, he wandered along the forest roads of his native land, willingly visited the surrounding villages, noting and writing down everything that would later serve him as material for such cycles of stories as “On the Nevestnitsa River”, “On Forest Paths” and the peculiar “Records of Old Years” "

In 1919, Sokolov-Mikitov taught at the Dorogobuzh city incomplete high school Smolensk region, where he moved with his family. Despite his lack of teaching experience, he quickly made friends with the guys. In literature classes, he spoke very clearly and meaningfully about the works of classics of Russian literature, and also talked about overseas countries and funny hunting adventures.

He really wanted to create a real children's magazine in which children directly participate: they write themselves, draw themselves and edit themselves. He was fascinated by the idea of organizing a “children's commune”, so fascinated that he wrote and, in an extremely short time, published a small book, “The Source is the City,” in which he defended and developed the idea of harmonious education of youth.

This little book, according to the writer, could mark the beginning of his teaching career, but feeling that he lacked knowledge, experience and skill, he abandoned the idea of becoming a teacher. He was drawn to wander again, he wanted to see the sea, which he had missed all this time.

In the spring of 1919, at the invitation of a comrade and classmate, Smolensk fellow countryman Grisha Ivanov, as representatives of the Pre-Prodelzapsevfront, they went south to the grain-growing regions in their own heated vehicle. More than once travelers were on the verge of death. In Melitopol, they miraculously escaped from the clutches of the Makhnovists who captured the city, were captured by the Petliurists near Kiev, and served in the counterintelligence department of Denikin’s general Bredov.

Sokolov-Mikitov barely managed to get into Crimea and become a sailor on the small old ship “Dykh-Tau”. Sea wanderings began again. He again visited many Asian, African, and European ports.

At the end of 1920, on the ocean-going ship Omsk, loaded with cotton

seed, Sokolov - Mikitov went to England. When "Omsk" arrived in

Gul, it turned out that the self-proclaimed White Guard authorities secretly

sailors were sold the ship to the British, and Sokolov - Mikitov together with

with his comrades, Russian sailors, he found himself in a foreign, inhospitable country without a means of subsistence.

Ivan Sergeevich lived in England for more than a year. Without a permanent job and a roof over his head, he wandered around rooming houses, doing odd jobs, he became convinced from his own bitter experience of the injustice and hostility of a world alien to him.

In the spring of 1921, he managed to move from England to Germany, to Berlin, which was overcrowded with Russian emigrants.

In 1922, A.M. came to Berlin from Russia. Bitter. To him as an eyewitness latest events in their homeland, emigrants began to flock. Together with A.N. Tolstoy went to Gorky and Sokolov - Mikitov. Gorky approved the intention of Sokolov and Mikitov to leave for Russia at the first opportunity and promised to assist him. And in the summer of the same year, the necessary documents were received and Sokolov-Mikitov, with Gorky’s letter to Fedin, left for Russia on a small German steamer.

In the summer of 1929, he, together with northern researchers, was on an expedition to the Arctic Ocean (the cycles “White Shores” and “At the End of the Earth”), in 1930 on Franz Josef Land, in the winter of 1931 - 32. - in an expedition organized to rescue the wrecked icebreaker "Malygin" ("Save the Ship"), in 1933 - in the Murmansk and Northern Territories, participated in the expedition to raise the icebreaker "Sadko" in Kandalaksha Bay, which sank in 1916.

In a word - wherever, in the fight against harsh nature courage, firmness, and perseverance of character are clearly manifested; he, following the call of his indefatigable nature in search of nature and his duty as a writer, was always in the forefront. A faithful friend of the conquerors of still little explored spaces, he is with them in the untrodden taiga with a hunting rifle on his back, and in the cockpit, and in the huts of winterers in the far North.

In March 1941, Sokolov-Mikitov settled in the village of Morozovo not far from Leningrad, where the war found him. Ivan Sergeevich, not accepted into the militia due to his age, was left to while away the hunger and cold in the village.

In June 1942, he and his family had to evacuate to the Urals, where Sokolov-Mikitov settled in Perm and served in the forestry department. During the evacuation, he prepared and submitted to the publishing house a collection of stories and essays “Above the Bright River”, essays “On the Ground” and “The Day of Evdokia Ivanovna” and others.

The last years of the writer's life

The last twenty years of I.S.’s life Sokolov - Mikitov were associated with the Kalinin region. Here, in Karacharovo on the Volga, a hundred steps from the water, on the edge of the forest, stood his simple log house. Very often guests came to the writer, his friends - writers, travelers, polar explorers. [Appendix 6]

IN last years Throughout his life, the writer willingly returns to the theme of the Russian village of pre-revolutionary and transitional times - to folk tales, records of conversations with land workers, to concise and accurate sketches of meetings, conversations, to portrait and speech characteristics.

In 1965-1966 4 volumes of the collected works of I.S. were published. Sokolov - Mikitov, which included all the most significant things created by the writer in his fifties extra years his literary activity.

Finding himself in almost complete darkness by the mid-sixties due to loss of vision, Ivan Sergeevich did not stop working. He could not write, did not see the lines, but his memory still remained bright. The discs of the recording machine were spinning, and the muffled voice of the writer sounded above the table. The words were placed on the tape. [ Appendix 7]

In 1969, his book “At Bright Origins” was published, in 1970 - “Favorites”, as well as new books for children.

For a fruitful literary activity I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor and medals.

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov - Mikitov died on February 20, 1975 in Moscow. The funeral was modest, without an orchestra and big loud speeches: he did not like them during his lifetime.

A hundred days later his wife, Lydia Ivanovna, died. Their ashes were buried in one grave near Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov - Mikitov went through a difficult life path. But from all the trials he emerged stronger mentally and spiritually.

A traveler by the vocation of his youth and a wanderer due to the circumstances of a difficult life, I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov, who had seen many distant lands, southern and northern seas and lands, carried with him everywhere the indelible memory of his native Smolensk region.

One of the brightest, “stunning” impressions in the writer’s life was, by his own admission, the impression of the sea, which “conquered” him.

“There’s nothing to regret” - and yet it’s a pity

“I was born and raised in the middle part of Russia, between the Oka and Dnieper rivers, in a simple, working family, my great-grandfathers and grandfathers are forever connected with the land” (Quoted hereinafter from: I. Sokolov-Mikitov. Collected works in four volumes, L., 1985; vol. 4. P. 130), wrote Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov in his “Memoirs” of 1964.

He was born on May 17, 1892 in the village of Oseki, Kaluga province; lived a long life, 82 years; died on February 20, 1975, leaving behind books that were highly valued by many of his contemporaries - among them were A. Remizov, I. Bunin, M. Gorky, M. Prishvin, A. Tolstoy, K. Fedin, A. Tvardovsky, K. .Paustovsky. He was lucky to have good, loyal friends in life and literature. But I would like to believe that it belongs not only to the history of Russian literature, but also to today.

In one of his favorite works - the story "Childhood" (1931) - the writer lovingly and deeply poetically reproduced the world of childhood, which remained in his memory for the rest of his life and in which he rightly saw the very origins of both his character and his creativity. The image of the young hero in the story is, of course, an artistic generalization in which personal impressions were melted, like wax, illuminated by later life experience, willingly or unwillingly, were subject to the laws of creativity. And yet there is a lot here that is deeply personal and autobiographical; Sokolov-Mikitov wrote about his hero, but thought about himself...

The beauty of Russian nature, the customs and traditions of the Russian village, the kaleidoscope of Russian characters, types that are imprinted in children's consciousness, the most diverse - ordinary, ordinary and extraordinary - events of those distant years, be it heavy thunderstorm on the road or reading books, the death of Uncle Akim - all this was laid in the foundation of the writer’s personality, determined his view of the world, and was later reflected in his artistic creativity... An unaccountable feeling of the fullness of life served as the basis of his natural optimism, which then helped him in the most difficult cases life.

However, childhood is not only a time of happiness and fullness of life; This is also a time of childhood fears, grievances, disappointments, a time when not only teeth and bones erupt and grow, but also personality, soul - and this process is not always easy and simple, often painful, complex, disharmonious. The hero of the story - and, of course, the author - is familiar with despair, and the awareness of his weakness, and the inability to understand many things that sometimes baffle him.

Sokolov-Mikitov’s childhood occurred at a time when a lot was already changing and disappearing in Russia: the poetic “Larinsky” estates were disappearing, the ancient landowner life of Turgenev’s novels, Chekhov’s novels were being cut down with might and main. cherry orchards. Practical Lopakhins came to the village, to Russia, and the “iron” city, with its strict orders and laws, was advancing. The centuries-old way of life of the Russian village, the Russian peasant life. “Everything changed in the village then. More and more often, suffering from unemployment and landlessness, men went to work in the cities, moved to mines, to factories. The youth returning from the city, having drank a different life, brought new words, new speeches were heard in the village ..." (p. 47). And yet - “there was still a lot of old, almost untouched in the remote Smolensk village...” (p. 48).

“I have nothing to regret from this past,” we read at the end of the story. “I only feel sorry for the broods of grouse, village songs and sundresses, I feel sorry for the childhood feeling of joy and love that once filled me, which no force can now return...” (p. 96 ).

“There’s nothing to regret” - and yet it’s a pity... It’s a pity for the past, fleeting childhood, for those moments of happiness and fullness of life that he knew, for that world of Russian life, established way of life, customs, it’s a pity for parents, friends, it’s a pity for everything that “ cannot be returned by any means,” - it’s a pity for the past, no matter how wonderful the future may be... With this feeling of slight sadness and love-pity - here it is, his saving “raft” - and the writer says goodbye to his childhood.

We also find many motifs and themes of “Childhood” in the story “Helen” (1929), in which we also see an island of endless Russian space, Russian cosmos. The plot of the story develops slowly, as if gradually. Her chronological framework- Russo-Japanese War, first Russian revolution of 1905. We learn how Khludov made his capital, how his son squandered his father's inheritance. In parallel with the line of the Khludovs, the theme of the Russian peasantry and its fate resounds in the story, gaining a crescendo. The author tells us about simple Russian peasants, such as the forester Frol, his father nicknamed Okunek, and other residents of the village. At the same time, the writer does not idealize them; he does not hide the fact that village people often turn out to be indifferent to the misfortune of their fellow countrymen. Poverty makes people callous and separates them; What unites them is their joint, friendly work. The chapter “Rafts” sounds like a true hymn to free collective labor - about raftsmen rafting timber down the river...

The image of Eleni is poetic and realistic at the same time - a quiet river and a small Russian village of the same name, which is located in the forest, in the swamps, in the very heart of Russia. Its middle, root essence is confirmed by the fact that it is the focus of many traditions of Russian life, with all its specificity, originality, and uniqueness. This world is dominated by respect for the distant and recent past, for the traditions of our ancestors. Slowly the sprouts of something new are breaking through here - something that comes from the city, from the outside world, with war and revolution. Despite all the isolation and hermeticity of this island of Russian space, it turns out to be vitally connected, united with all of Russia, with its historical soil, destiny.

The story "Elen" was conceived as a novel; it feels a certain incompleteness, lack of development of plot lines, atomic compression of images and individual scenes. However, the material underlying the story and the realistic skill of the artist make it a completely valuable, self-sufficient work. His relevance is not striking, it is not declared, but is an organic component of his artistic world. All this amounts to character traits already established in the late 20s - early 30s of the artist’s creative style.

Writer at 25

The formation of the writer took place in conditions of a sharp revolutionary breakdown of the traditional foundations of Russian national life. He witnessed and took part in the revolution of 1905, the February revolution, and finally the October 1917 revolution. I. Sokolov-Mikitov was drawn to his native land, to the village; he was in love with Russian nature with its open spaces and silence, Levitan's peace. At the same time, by his own admission, he “never experienced an attraction to settled life, property and home life” (p. 136). And therefore, from his youth, his life turned out to be filled with many different events.

He often changed professions (he was a doctor, aircraft mechanic, sailor, etc.), traveled a lot, participated in the First World War, and, as already mentioned, was not just an outside observer in revolutionary events. But, finding himself far from home, he yearned for his homeland, he was again and again drawn to his native places of “middle Russia.” All this was reflected in his work, in which the motifs of the road, partings and meetings, the motifs of distant travels and unquenchable love for the Motherland - as if in a symphony, complemented and enriched each other...

Already at the age of ten, I. Sokolov-Mikitov experienced the first “turning point” in his life, when he and his family moved from the village to the city (Smolensk), where a complex and contradictory world, previously unfamiliar, opened up to him.

At school, he especially did not get along with the law teacher - the class teacher, “who, for some unknown reason, disliked me” (p. 133). From the fifth grade of a real school he was “expelled with a wolf ticket” on suspicion of belonging to student revolutionary organizations.” “The expulsion from the school was preceded by a search in my room on Zapolnaya Street, in the presence of a gendarmerie captain and two policemen. As it turned out later, the reason for the search was the denunciation of a provocateur who served as a clerk in a tobacco shop, behind the partition of which we sometimes gathered" (p. 134). This became the second "turning point" in his life, introducing him to the revolutionary events in Russia.

One of the brightest, “stunning” impressions in the writer’s life was, by his own admission, the impression of the sea, which “conquered” him. He served as a sailor on ships of the merchant fleet, visited many cities and countries, and saw many seas. I. Sokolov-Mikitov recalled that the events of the First World War found him far from his homeland, on the shores of the Aegean Sea, where he wandered around the Chalcedonian Peninsula, near the legendary Olympus, without a penny in his pocket. “He returned to Russia by sea when the First World War was already raging over the world. This First World War, which shook the foundations of the old world, became the third life test" (p. 137).

Then, after living for a short time in the village, he went to the front as a volunteer, served in medical units, flew on the first Russian heavy bomber "Ilya Muromets", whose commander was Smolensk fellow countryman G.V. Alekhnovich is one of the first famous pilots in Russia. During the war years, Ivan Sergeevich continued to write and occasionally published in literary collections and magazines.

He met the February revolution at the front. Later, Sokolov-Mikitov recalled how, as a deputy from the front-line soldiers, he came “to revolutionary Petrograd, flooded with red flags.” Here I met the October Revolution; in the hall of the Tauride Palace he listened to Lenin's speech; Here, in the editorial office of Novaya Zhizn, I met A.M. Gorky and other writers who responded kindly to his creative experiences, for the first time began to think seriously about what soon determined his life, became his destiny... “The revolution became my fourth and final turning point in my life: I became a writer” (Memoirs, p. 137, vol. 4). At that time he was twenty-five years old.

Origins: folklore and “Russian nature”

I. Sokolov-Mikitov himself admitted that one of the main and first sources of his creativity was Russian folklore, Russian folk tales, which he knew well since childhood, loved, from which he drew inspiration. IN different years he created the cycle “Naughty Tales”, in which the writer “in his own language” told some famous fairy tale motifs, developed them, used well-known ones and created new images of fairy-tale characters. Working on fairy tales was a school for him, in which he learned the beautiful figurative Russian language, the ability to tell an artless and simple story, build a plot, combine fantasy, fiction with subtle and deep observations of life, human psychology, with his wise attitude towards genuine moral and spiritual values.

At the same time, Sokolov-Mikitov definitely and unequivocally declared himself as a follower of the realistic school. During these years, he created a series of stories about the war. He writes about what he knows well, what he has seen and heard himself, so his stories are often similar to sketches, essays, and correspondence. The author's commentary in them, as a rule, is minimal, philosophical reflections rare and stingy. At the same time, the main thing for a writer is to convey the state of mind.

The nerve of war stories by I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov - thoughts about Russia, about the Russian character. There is pain and pride, but behind all this is the desire for truth. In the story “Here and There,” the writer reflects on “Russian nature”: “to say God knows what, but to be firm in action”; “to scold and curse the cause, but at the same time to pursue it uncompromisingly to the end, despite troubles and misfortunes” (p. 13).

In the stories "Cuckoo's Children", " Winged words", "Whisper of Flowers", "The Calm Before the Storm" there are many episodes in which the spiritual generosity of the Russian person, his dedication, and irresistible craving for beauty are revealed.

"No people"

While on long sea voyages, on the fronts of the First World War, Ivan Sergeevich listened to what was happening in Russia. He accepted the revolution - first the February, and then the October - with enthusiasm, realizing the necessity and beneficialness of change, but also well understanding the difficulties facing the new government... The story “Desolation” is about one of these difficulties. “There are no people - that’s what I understood. Conscientious, conscientious people who understand the threatening situation of the country and the revolution.” “The great misfortune of Russia, worse than hunger, is desolation” (pp. 45, 47).

In 1923, his “Letters from the Village” were published in the magazine “Russia”, which contained interesting observations about the village in the first post-revolutionary years. “The ends are strangely mixed up: the twenty-first century is mixed up with the sixteenth century,” notes Sokolov-Mikitov (p. 70). In this mixture there is inevitably a lot of superficial, superficial things, which, in turn, negatively affects the language itself. “Time has filled the village with verbal rubbish - and the woman in the consumer shop, choosing chintz, no longer says to the godfather clerk: “Godfather Arsenya, give me better chintz.” The woman says: “It is advisable to take an energetic chintz.” In the volost executive committee... the chairman says to secretary Kuzka, to the smart guy: “Edit the piece of paper, Kuzka” (p. 70). “New life, old life - where can I find words?!” the author exclaims (p. 71) When reading “Letters...” the characters involuntarily come to mind. satirical works V. Mayakovsky, D. Bedny, stories and stories by M. Zoshchenko, M. Bulgakov.

"Sea" stories

In the same 1920s, I. Sokolov-Mikitov developed a whole layer of stories and works of other genres, which reflected the “sea” period of his life, numerous wanderings around the world, and travels.

He is concerned about distant countries, he admires the beauty and landscapes; he is shocked by such simple and Eternal values, like the sun, earth, sea, birds; he never tires of admiring all the changing splendor of nature day and night, at sunrise and sunset...

The world of sea stories is both romantic and realistic at the same time. Romance emanates from the heroes’ desire to travel, during which the world expands, surprises with its diversity, beauty - a real discovery and comprehension of the world occurs.

Sokolov-Mikitov's heroes are simple working people, sailors, loaders, men and women, Russians and English, Greeks and Turks - a whole gallery of artistic images created with varying degrees of expressiveness, memorable either for their unusualness, originality, or for their specificity and typicality. Most of the scenes are visible and tangible, the portraits are in relief, as if engraved on a medallion.

The author of the stories shows a deep and keen interest in those countries and peoples that pass before his eyes, which he meets when entering foreign ports - these are the ports of Africa, the Mediterranean countries, with their midday heat, the spicy smells of oriental bazaars, and the ports of England, Holland, other countries.

The hero spends years sailing away from his native shores, walking through the streets and squares of foreign ports and cities - and the dream of returning to Russia always remains a longed-for dream for the author himself and his heroic compatriots. Memories of childhood and youth, of parents and friends draw one back to one’s homeland; in his dreams he sees Russian fields and gardens, the river where he fished, roads, forests - the whole world of peace and quiet that is stored in the soul and serves as an inexhaustible reservoir during the difficult years of wandering. Events, both alarming and joyful, draw you home.

True to his in a creative manner, style, Sokolov-Mikitov, as a rule, does not build complex plots, intricacies, and does not go into deep philosophical reasoning and the psychological depths of his characters. He is limited to a restrained, meager recording of events, a brief author's commentary; here, it seems, a lot remains behind the scenes... But in the very manner of narration, devoid of external showiness and significance, there is hidden the internal energy and tension of the unsaid, which pushes the reader’s imagination, helps him “complete” a lot of things himself, as if participating in the process of creating an artistic image, a slightly planned plot.

Restraint of intonation, leisurely external action, keen observation, fullness of words, harmony of the hidden and realized in what is depicted - these are just some of the characteristic features of I. Sokolov-Mikitov’s prose and his style, without understanding which it is impossible to have a meaningful attitude towards the artist and the real value of his work.

Ivan and the fog

The most notable work of Sokolov-Mikitov in the 1920s was the story “Chizhikov Lavra” (1926); it is also fundamentally autobiographical. The story has several time layers that interpenetrate one another, enrich the narrative, help penetrate into the hero’s spiritual world, and better understand the very origins of his character, his worldview. And here the hero’s memories of his childhood, youth, and those years that preceded his emigrant odyssey play an important role. These memories of the past as paradise lost They torment him, but also help him to withstand and survive in a foreign country. They are the solid foundation on which the edifice of his personality and his relationship with the world is built. They are like a litmus test that determines the most important life values that guide the hero in his adult life.

Most of the story is devoted to the life of the main character, Ivan, in England. He is upset that the British know offensively little about Russia. Peering at his surroundings, noticing the new, unusual, Ivan becomes even more acutely aware of himself, his belonging to Russia, to everything Russian. And now he is even more convinced: “there is something about a Russian person - no matter how he dresses, from a distance it is clear that he is Russian” (p. 157).

Homesickness is perhaps the hero’s most important, persistent pain. She constantly reminds of herself, strangles him - sometimes worse, more evil than “consumption” - truly “even with her head on the doorframe.” This melancholy devalues and distorts everything “here”; from this, sometimes the most ordinary things give rise to inappropriate feelings, unexpected irritation...

With the Bolsheviks coming to power in Russia, the attitude towards Russians abroad worsened even more: “...they threw us out of the yard like skinny cattle” (p. 159). There was no permanent job, there was not enough money to pay for housing, they ate “bare bread”... A feeling of complete homelessness, almost doom, visits him on the streets of the city, where he spends whole days looking for food and work. “And suddenly it was like a hoof hit me in the forehead: “I’m lost!”... I didn’t really realize myself, there was only one thing in front of me: that there were people, houses, shops - and walls, walls, walls here, and that a person would die here, like where somewhere in the Siberian taiga... No one will even notice, not a single point will move.

The key here is the image of a wall that fences a person off from the world, from society, from his own kind; this is a symbol of a person’s complete alienation from the world around him, the inability to resist circumstances, to simply survive in these conditions. In many ways, a similar function is performed by another image that is often found on the pages of the story - the image of fog. It becomes a capacious artistic metaphor, meaning the vagueness, opacity of the surrounding world, the vagueness of the life goals of a person cut off from his homeland, who has lost touch with the root system of his people. “It was so foggy! People walked around like fish in a muddy pond. And the city was terrible, invisible and deathly yellow” (p. 186).

“Ours” and “theirs”, “ours” and “theirs” is one of the constant, cross-cutting motifs of the narrative, the principles of identification of a person in exile. With his mind, Ivan notes a lot of useful, reasonable things in the orders and customs of foreigners, he is ready to accept a lot, but his soul and heart rebel and reject. Memory colors the entire past in nostalgic tones, preventing it from fitting into “here”...

Various Russian people ended up abroad. The writer creates a whole gallery of types, characters, talks about human destinies- all of them are somehow connected with the revolution, with the changes that took place in Lately in Russia. Often the author only sketches a colorful portrait with a few strokes, without developing this or that in detail. storyline, this or that image drawing. However, these few touches are enough to outline a unique character. Almost each of them has its own “eccentricity”, its own peculiarity - attractive or repulsive, but in the end we are presented with a rather motley and in many ways characteristic “mixture” of persons, a kind of panopticon of the types that made up the Russian emigration of those distant years.

Quiet classic

There were still years and decades of hard creative work ahead, moments of insight and ups, hours and days of doubt and despair - everything that the life of a Russian artist, living one life with the people, with his country, is full of.

I. Sokolov-Mikitov did not shy away from controversial topics, current problems, often wrote on the “living trail” of events in the center of which he found himself. But at the same time, he retained a special, quiet tone of voice; artificial, superficial pathos was alien to him. He was often criticized for the passivity of the hero, for the insufficiently clear and precise author’s position, for the fact that his work allegedly lies away from the main, “main path” of Soviet literature...

30 years have passed since the death of Sokolov-Mikitov, the previous reproaches have become a thing of the past and have lost their relevance, but our time does not show due interest in this “quiet”, “forgotten classic”. To read it you need silence, peace of mind, faith in man, his purpose on earth, a non-vain, persistent love for the homeland, for Russia is needed - I.S. had all this. Sokolov-Mikitov in full. And one can only believe that his time will definitely come.

“There’s nothing to regret” - and yet it’s a pity

In one of his favorite works - the story "Childhood" (1931) - the writer lovingly and deeply poetically reproduced the world of childhood, which remained in his memory for the rest of his life and in which he rightly saw the very origins of both his character and his creativity. The image of the young hero in the story is, of course, an artistic generalization in which personal impressions were melted down like wax, illuminated by later life experiences, and, willingly or unwillingly, were subject to the laws of creativity. And yet there is a lot here that is deeply personal and autobiographical; Sokolov-Mikitov wrote about his hero, but thought about himself...

The beauty of Russian nature, the customs and traditions of the Russian village, a kaleidoscope of Russian characters, types that are imprinted in children's consciousness, the most diverse - ordinary, ordinary and extraordinary - events of those distant years, be it a strong thunderstorm on the way or reading books, the death of Uncle Akim, - all this was laid in the foundation of the writer’s personality, determined his view of the world, and was later reflected in his artistic work... An unaccountable feeling of the fullness of life served as the basis of his natural optimism, which then helped him in the most difficult cases of life.

Sokolov-Mikitov’s childhood occurred at a time when a lot was already changing and disappearing in Russia: the poetic “Larinsky” estates were disappearing, the ancient landowner life of Turgenev’s novels, Chekhov’s cherry orchards were being cut down with might and main. Practical Lopakhins came to the village, to Russia, and the “iron” city, with its strict orders and laws, was advancing. The centuries-old way of life of the Russian village and Russian peasant life was being destroyed. “Everything changed in the village then. More and more often, suffering from unemployment and landlessness, men went to work in the cities, moved to mines, to factories. The youth returning from the city, having drank a different life, brought new words, new speeches were heard in the village ..." (p. 47). And yet - “there was still a lot of old, almost untouched in the remote Smolensk village...” (p. 48).

We also find many motifs and themes of “Childhood” in the story “Helen” (1929), in which we also see an island of endless Russian space, Russian cosmos. The plot of the story develops slowly, as if gradually. Its chronological framework is the Russo-Japanese War, the first Russian revolution of 1905. We learn how Khludov made his capital, how his son squandered his father's inheritance. In parallel with the line of the Khludovs, the theme of the Russian peasantry and its fate resounds in the story, gaining a crescendo. The author tells us about simple Russian peasants, such as the forester Frol, his father nicknamed Okunek, and other residents of the village. At the same time, the writer does not idealize them; he does not hide the fact that village people often turn out to be indifferent to the misfortune of their fellow countrymen. Poverty makes people callous and separates them; What unites them is their joint, friendly work. The chapter “Rafts” sounds like a true hymn to free collective labor - about raftsmen rafting timber down the river┘

The story "Elen" was conceived as a novel; it feels a certain incompleteness, lack of development of plot lines, atomic compression of images and individual scenes. However, the material underlying the story and the realistic skill of the artist make it a completely valuable, self-sufficient work. His relevance is not striking, it is not declared, but is an organic component of his artistic world. All this constitutes the characteristic features of the artist’s creative style that had already developed in the late 20s and early 30s.

Writer at 25

Origins: folklore and “Russian nature”

I. Sokolov-Mikitov himself admitted that one of the main and first sources of his work was Russian folklore, Russian folk tales, which he knew well from childhood, loved, and from which he drew inspiration. Over the years, he created the cycle “Mischievous Tales”, in which the writer “in his own language” told some well-known fairy-tale motifs, developed them, used well-known ones and created new images of fairy-tale characters. Working on fairy tales was a school for him, in which he learned the beautiful figurative Russian language, the ability to tell an artless and simple story, build a plot, combine fantasy, fiction with subtle and deep observations of life, human psychology, with his wise attitude towards genuine moral and spiritual values.

At the same time, Sokolov-Mikitov definitely and unequivocally declared himself as a follower of the realistic school. During these years, he created a series of stories about the war. He writes about what he knows well, what he has seen and heard himself, so his stories are often similar to sketches, essays, and correspondence. The author's commentary in them, as a rule, is minimal, philosophical reflections are rare and sparing. At the same time, the main thing for a writer is to convey the state of his soul.

In the stories “Cuckoo's Children”, “Winged Words”, “Whisper of Flowers”, “The Calm Before the Storm” there are many episodes in which the spiritual generosity of the Russian person, his dedication, and irresistible craving for beauty are revealed.

"No people"

In 1923, his “Letters from the Village” were published in the magazine “Russia”, which contained interesting observations about the village in the first post-revolutionary years. “The ends are strangely mixed up: the twenty-first century is mixed up with the sixteenth century,” notes Sokolov-Mikitov (p. 70). In this mixture there is inevitably a lot of superficial, superficial things, which, in turn, negatively affects the language itself. “Time has filled the village with verbal rubbish - and the woman in the consumer shop, choosing chintz, no longer says to the godfather clerk: “Godfather Arsenya, give me better chintz”; the woman says: “It is advisable to take an energetic chintz.” In the volost executive committee, the chairman says to secretary Kuzka, to the smart guy: “Edit the piece of paper, Kuzka” (p. 70). “New life, old life - where can I find words?!” the author exclaims (p. 71). Mayakovsky, D. Bedny, stories and stories by M. Zoshchenko, M. Bulgakov.

"Sea" stories

He is concerned about distant countries, he admires the beauty and landscapes; he is shocked by such simple and eternal values as the sun, earth, sea, birds; he never tires of admiring all the changing splendor of nature day and night, at sunrise and sunset...

True to his creative manner and style, Sokolov-Mikitov, as a rule, does not build complex plots, intricacies, or go into deep philosophical reasoning and the psychological depths of his characters. He is limited to a restrained, meager recording of events, a brief author's commentary; here, it seems, a lot remains behind the scenes... But in the very manner of narration, devoid of external showiness and significance, there is hidden the internal energy and tension of the unsaid, which pushes the reader’s imagination, helps him “complete” a lot of things himself, as if participating in the process of creating an artistic image, a slightly planned plot.

Ivan and the fog

The most notable work of Sokolov-Mikitov in the 1920s was the story “Chizhikov Lavra” (1926); it is also fundamentally autobiographical. The story has several time layers that interpenetrate one another, enrich the narrative, help penetrate into the hero’s spiritual world, and better understand the very origins of his character, his worldview. And here the hero’s memories of his childhood, youth, and those years that preceded his emigrant odyssey play an important role. These memories of the past as a lost paradise torment him, but also help him to withstand and survive in a foreign country. They are the solid foundation on which the edifice of his personality and his relationship with the world is built. They are like a litmus test that determines the most important life values that guide the hero in his adult life.

With the Bolsheviks coming to power in Russia, the attitude towards Russians abroad worsened even more: “┘they threw us out of the yard like skinny cattle” (p. 159). There was no permanent job, there was not enough money to pay for housing, they ate “naked bread”... A feeling of complete homelessness, almost doom, visits him on the streets of the city, where he spends whole days looking for food and work. “And suddenly it was like a hoof hit me in the forehead: “I’m lost!”... I didn’t really realize myself, there was only one thing in front of me: that there were people, houses, shops - and walls, walls, walls here, and that a person would die here, like where somewhere in the Siberian taiga... No one will even notice, not a single point will move.

Various Russian people ended up abroad. The writer creates a whole gallery of types, characters, talks about human destinies - all of them are somehow connected with the revolution, with the changes that have recently occurred in Russia. Often the author only sketches a colorful portrait with a few strokes, without developing in detail this or that storyline, this or that drawing of the image. However, these few touches are enough to outline a unique character. Almost each of them has its own “eccentricity”, its own peculiarity - attractive or repulsive, but in the end we are presented with a rather motley and in many ways characteristic “mixture” of persons, a kind of panopticon of the types that made up the Russian emigration of those distant years.

Quiet classic

I. Sokolov-Mikitov did not shy away from pressing topics and current problems; he often wrote on the “living trail” of events in the center of which he found himself. But at the same time, he retained a special, quiet tone of voice; artificial, superficial pathos was alien to him. He was often criticized for the passivity of the hero, for the insufficiently clear and precise author’s position, for the fact that his work allegedly lies away from the main, “main path” of Soviet literature...

30 years have passed since the death of Sokolov-Mikitov, the previous reproaches have become a thing of the past and have lost their relevance, but our time does not show due interest in this “quiet”, “forgotten classic”. To read it you need silence, peace of mind, faith in man, his purpose on earth, you need a non-vain, persistent love for the homeland, for Russia - I.S. had all this. Sokolov-Mikitov in full. And one can only believe that his time will definitely come.

Biography (State Institution "Regional Special Library for the Blind named after. N. Ostrovsky", 2008. - 15 pp., 1 sheet. portrait)

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov is an original Russian writer, talented artist, graphic artist, famous traveler and hunter. A remarkable master of words, of course, belonging to a group of nature-loving writers and local historians, whose name is inextricably linked with the history of the Kaluga region.

Ivan Sergeevich was born on May 17 (30), 1892 in the Oseki tract near Kaluga in the family of Sergei Nikitich Sokolov, manager of the forest estate of millionaire Konshin. The writer's mother was born into a peasant family in the village of Buda, Khvastovichi district. Maria Ivanovna on her father’s side was from the Kaluga Old Believers and was religious.

And Sokolov-Mikitov says: when his mother decided to get married at the age of 20, she went to Optina Pustyn to consult with Elder Ambrose. Three suitors were wooed: the station chief, a young merchant and the third - Sergei, a forester. The latter was not a very wealthy man, the other two suitors were more enviable, and besides, Sergei was 14 years older than her. Ambrose sat Mother on a bench in the monastery, where he usually received visitors, asked her kindly and said: “Marry Sergius, Mashenka.” At first she was surprised, but the matter was decided. She married Sergei. They had a boy. “It was me,” Ivan Sergeevich announced triumphantly. “Thanks to Elder Zosima from The Brothers Karamazov (as Dostoevsky called Elder Ambrose), I came into this world.”

In 1894-1895 The Sokolov family moved to their father’s homeland in the village of Kislovo, Dorogobuzh district, Smolensk province. Sokolov-Mikitov lived in Kaluga for only three years. But these years were very memorable. In many works, Ivan Sergeevich described her Kaluga nature, its forests and rivers. In the autobiographical story “Childhood” (1931-1953), the writer colorfully described his early childhood, held in Osek. “Vaguely, as if through a layer of water, I remember the house in which I was born...” said Sokolov-Mikitov.

In his autobiographical notes, Sokolov-Mikitov called his homeland “warm land” and always remembered it with the deepest tenderness.

He said touchingly about the stories “Childhood” and “Helen”: “This is written about something very distant, but how close it is to my heart...”

The artist rediscovers the beauty of his native places, especially dear to childhood memories, upon returning there after his youthful wanderings. In June-July 1926, Sokolov-Mikitov and his friend K.A. Fedin takes a trip along the Ugra and Oka rivers with the intention of sailing from the village of Kislovo along the Volga to Astrakhan. The small boat bore the somewhat comical name “Zasuponya” (after the title of a fairy tale by Sokolov-Mikitov). A modest villager took part in this expedition, about whom K. Fedin would later say that he was “a carpenter, a hunter, a sailor and a cook in our boat voyage.”

Not everything was accomplished as planned, but the route from the Ugra Gordota tributary to Kolomna exceeded 600 km. Travelers then visited Yukhnov, Kaluga, Aleksin, Tarusa, Kashira, and saw the sights of these places. Sokolov-Mikitov couldn’t wait to show his friends the soul-lifting forests, fragrant fields, dear to the heart of Oseki, where he spent three years of his childhood.

From Kolomna Fedin returned to Saratov, and Sokolov-Mikitov to Kislovo. Sailing along the Ugra and Oka left a noticeable mark on the work of Sokolov-Mikitov - four letters from the Ugra River - “At the White Stone”, “The Fate of the Brykalovskaya Lady”, “Karl on Dry Legs”, “On the Roll” (in August-September 1926 .).

With a letter from Kaluga, dated July 24, 1926, Sokolov-Mikitov sent criticism to V.P. Polonsky two stories “Dead Swell”, “Charshi”, published in October of the same year.

“Ugra and Oka,” notes literary critic P.P. Shirmakov, “were, as it were, the threshold of Sokolov-Mikitov’s great travels to the North.”

In 1933 and 1934, Sokolov-Mikitov spent two summers in Optina Pustyn near Kaluga, resting and working in a former monastery. The writer recalled that towards the monastery the monastery was tightly closed, and the only way out was from Ambrose’s cell - two stone steps led beyond the fence. In the monastery itself there was then a rest house: red cloth hung, gramophones rattled. Ivan Sergeevich could not get used to the fact that the participle “vacationers” began to be used as a noun, and one day he added “loafers” to the word “vacationers” in an announcement about a dance evening.

Following the chronicle of the writer's life, in 1950, after July 13 - August 15, Sokolov-Mikitov visited Smolensk, Kochany and Kislovo, then Kaluga. From notebooks: “I was in Kaluga, in hometown. Something has survived from the old one. A clear, light ring of bells in the glow of the sky. The city garden where I was scared by fireworks as a child. Oka. People".

On September 29, 1958, Sokolov-Mikitov, together with S.M. Alyansky visited K.G. in Tarusa. Paustovsky, with whom he was born on the same year and day. The writer's life had much in common with the fate of Paustovsky.

When the eye disease was just beginning, Ivan Sergeevich increasingly began to remember the Smolensk and Kaluga places where he spent his childhood and adolescence. One felt an unbearable pull there: “We must bow to our native graves...”. Then in 1959, before September 15, another trip of the writer to Kaluga took place. Visited Oseki. The Znamya newspaper wrote about this visit.

Ivan Sergeevich said: “The more years pass, the more strongly I am drawn to my small homeland, where I lived for the first years. I went to where my father was the manager. I came by car. Beautiful places. I looked for where the house stood, asked old people, in the forestry old map found, determined the location of the estate, checked. It is noticeable that there was a house, a wild acacia, the remains of alleys. I walk around and think: how many people came here to see my father! The famous forester Tursky held me in his arms and nursed me.”

Having visited his homeland, the writer calmed down, but did not like to talk in detail about the trip: apparently, his native land stirred his soul not only with joys, but also with sorrows of past and present years.

Having survived not a single cruel blow in his life, having buried three daughters, Ivan Sergeevich survived. Both a strong character and a strong body had an impact. But man was not created from iron. Grief did its job after all. Before his time, he began to grow old, to all the troubles - to go blind...

In 1959, the writer was in the eye disease clinic of the Military Medical Academy in Leningrad for an examination. In 1964, Sokolov-Mikitov was recognized as disabled group III (glaucoma of the eyes, varicose veins).

The painful process of losing vision proceeded very slowly. At first, stronger and stronger glasses became necessary, then he could only read with a magnifying glass, then his central vision faded and he could see only slightly from the side, then he only faintly sensed light, and finally he was surrounded by darkness.

In 1967, the Sokolov-Mikitov family moved from Leningrad to live permanently in Moscow.

I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov died on February 20, 1975 in Moscow at his apartment. The urn with ashes was buried in the family cemetery in Gatchina.

Presentation of correspondence between K. Fedin and I. Sokolov-Mikitov

WITH LOVE FOR WILDLIFE (Vladimir SOLOUKHIN)

From childhood, from school, a person gets used to the combination of words: “love for the motherland.” He realizes this love much later, and understanding the complex feeling of love for his homeland - that is, what exactly he loves and why - is given already in adulthood.

This feeling is really complicated. Here is the native culture, and native history, all the past and all the future of the people, everything that the people managed to accomplish throughout their history and what they still have to do.

Without going into deep reasoning, we can say that one of the first places in the complex feeling of love for one’s homeland is love for one’s native nature.

For a person born in the mountains, nothing could be sweeter than rocks and mountain streams, snow-white peaks and steep slopes. It would seem, what to love in the tundra? A monotonous swampy land with countless glassy lakes, overgrown with lichens, but the Nenets reindeer herder would not exchange his tundra for any southern beauty.

In a word, who loves the steppe, who loves the mountains, who loves the sea coast smelling of fish, and who loves the native Central Russian nature, quiet beautiful rivers with yellow water lilies and white lilies, the kind, quiet sun of Ryazan... And so that the lark sings over the field rye, and a birdhouse on a birch tree in front of the porch.

It would be pointless to list all the signs of Russian nature. But from thousands of signs and signs, what we call our native nature and that we, perhaps loving both the sea and the mountains, still love more than anything else in the whole world.

All this is true. But it must be said that this feeling of love for our native nature is not spontaneous in us, it not only arose by itself, since we were born and raised among nature, but was brought up in us by literature, painting, music, by those great teachers of ours who lived before us , also loved their native land and passed on their love to us, our descendants.

Don’t we remember by heart from childhood the best lines about nature by Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Alexei Tolstoy, Tyutchev, Fet? Do they leave us indifferent, don’t they teach us anything about the descriptions of nature from Turgenev, Aksakov, Leo Tolstoy, Prishvin, Leonov, Paustovsky?.. And painting? Shishkin and Levitan, Polenov and Savrasov, Nesterov and Plastov - didn’t they teach and are not teaching us to love our native nature? Among these glorious teachers, the name of the remarkable Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov occupies a worthy place.

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov was born in 1892 on the land of Smolensk, and his childhood was spent among the most Russian nature. Were still alive at that time folk customs, rituals, holidays, life and way of life of old. Shortly before his death, Ivan Sergeevich wrote about that time and that world:

“My life began in indigenous peasant Russia. This Russia was my real homeland. I listened to peasant songs, watched how bread was baked in a Russian oven, remembered village thatched huts, women and men... I remember merry Christmastide, Maslenitsa, village weddings, fairs, round dances, village friends, guys, our funny Games, skiing from the mountains... I remember a cheerful hayfield, a village field sown with rye, narrow fields, blue cornflowers along the borders... I remember how, dressed in festive sundresses, women and girls went out to reap the ripened rye, colorful bright spots scattered across the golden clean field, how the zazhinki were celebrated. The first sheaf was trusted to be compressed by the most beautiful, hardworking woman - a good, intelligent housewife... This was the world in which I was born and lived, this was the Russia that Pushkin knew, Tolstoy knew”*.

* Sokolov-Mikitov I. S. Long-ago meetings.

Ivan Sergeevich lived a long and rich life. For several years he sailed as a sailor across all seas and oceans, served in a medical detachment in the First World War, worked as a teacher, spent several winters on the shores of the Caspian Sea, traveled through the Kola and Taimyr Peninsulas, Transcaucasia, the Tien Shan mountains, wandered through the dense taiga ... He was a sailor, traveler, hunter, ethnographer. But most importantly, he was a talented and brilliant writer. Kuprin once praised Sokolov-Mikitov as a writer:

“I really appreciate your gift of writing for your vivid depiction, true knowledge of people’s life, for your living and truthful language. Most of all, I like that you have found your own unique style and form. Both prevent you from being confused with someone else, and this is the most valuable thing.”

Sokolov-Mikitov wrote many books about his Smolensk region, about ordinary Russian people, peasants, polar explorers, hunters, about everyone with whom fate brought him together. life path. And it was a long path: more than half a century of active writing work, and in total he was already over eighty.

The last twenty years of Sokolov-Mikitov’s life were connected with Karacharov on the Volga in the Kalinin region, where Ivan Sergeevich had a simple log house a hundred steps from the water, on the edge of the forest. The wide expanse of water, the copses and villages on the other side, the abundance of flowers, forest birds, mushrooms - all this brought the writer even closer to his native nature. From a hunter, as often happens with people in old age, he turned into an attentive observer, and not only because, say, his eyesight or hand weakened, but because a caring, loving, truly filial attitude towards Russian nature awoke in his soul, when a person understands that it is better to admire a living bird on a tree branch than a dead bird in a hunting bag. During these years, Ivan Sergeevich wrote his best pages about his native Russian nature, about trees and birds, about flowers and animals.

A kind and wise person teaches us that nature is our not only material, but also primarily spiritual wealth; knowledge of nature and love for it foster a sense of patriotism, humanity, kindness, and develop a sense of beauty. Generations of Russian people will learn this from Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov, just as they learn from Turgenev and Aksakov, from Nekrasov and Prishvin, from Paustovsky and Leonov.

Biography

The name of Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov (1892-1975) now seems undeservedly forgotten.

His books are not published, and his name appears only in school curriculum. Meanwhile, he was a major figure of his time - a prose writer, publicist, and memoirist. Born into a simple family (his father was a clerk, his mother was a peasant), the boy received a good “home” education (books were especially revered in the family). However, being well-read did not contribute to learning. He studied poorly at the Smolensk real school and therefore was able to enter only that educational institution that did not require a certificate of secondary education - the St. Petersburg Higher Agricultural Courses.

There his talent as a writer began to take shape. "The Salt of the Earth" is the first fairy tale published in Argus magazine.

After leaving the course, Ivan is captivated by the romance of distant travels and becomes a sailor. Sea travel is interrupted by the First World War. The writer goes to the front.

The revolution forced the writer to leave his homeland. Being an emigrant, he publishes several accusatory articles about the atrocities of the Bolsheviks. However, he could not be separated from his country for long. And in the early 20s, I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov arrived in the Soviet Union. Here begins the period of his intensive writing work. He writes stories about the village, essays, memoirs. Being essentially a traveler, he visited not only many places in our country and abroad, but was also a participant in polar expeditions, which he later colorfully described.

The main theme in the writer’s work was nature. Sunrise and sunset, forests, powder, ice drift - he wrote about all this with such love that, reading his books, one cannot help but be imbued with his sense of admiration for the world of living nature and reverence for it.

The books of I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov are a rich source of information about the world around us, from which we are sometimes so far away!

Biography

The wonderful writer Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov (1892-1975) lived a long and eventful life. He spent his childhood in a quiet forest village in the Smolensk region. His father, a hunter and forest expert, worked as a forestry clerk for merchants; his mother ran a peasant farm.

“The first words I heard were bright folk words, the first fairy tales, the first music I heard - peasant songs, perhaps the very songs that were once inspired by the great Russian composer Glinka, who was born in our Smolensk region,” wrote Ivan Sergeevich many years later in his autobiography.

The thirst for wandering, which arose during his youthful hunting wanderings, did not leave him throughout his life. Where did he go, getting a job as a sailor on merchant ships, wherever fate took him!

Having finally returned to Russia in 1922, Ivan Sergeevich left for his native Smolensk region and devoted himself to literary work. In the second half of the twenties, publishing houses in Moscow and Leningrad published one after another several books of his stories about the village and hunting, about sea travels. But being a homebody was not in Ivan Sergeevich’s character. Living in Kislov, his native village, he hunted a lot, wandered through the forested Smolensk regions, made, together with his friend the writer Fedin and his fellow villager Badeev, a small, childhood trip on a punt boat along the Ugra and Oka rivers to Kolomna and again set off on a voyage around Europe.

A strong and courageous man, an experienced hunter, Ivan Sergeevich was easy-going, quick to get ready and boldly entrusted himself to the road, not fearing the hardships of a camp life devoid of conveniences.

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov can rightfully be named among the founders of the modern essay as a genre of literature. Both adults and young readers read his poetic essays with equal interest. Various publishing houses across the country have published several dozen of his books. His book “From Spring to Spring” was reprinted several times, many works were translated into foreign languages, the books “A Year in the Forest” and “Russian Forest” were awarded prizes at international exhibitions. And the writer’s first children’s book, “Kuzovok,” was published back in 1922.

It is wrong to believe that only those who study it - biologists, botanists or geographers - should know nature. Knowledge of nature, love and closeness to it enriches the life of any person, regardless of his occupation. A person who knows and nature lover, happier because he is endowed with this feeling and freed from boredom - after all, the life of nature is diverse, unique from day to day, and it is enough for him to travel outside the city to find something new for himself in addition to what he knew before.

Ivan Sergeevich was not a specialist - a biologist or botanist. But he knew and felt nature subtly and unmistakably. This is a trait of great writing talent. This is how Tolstoy and Turgenev, Aksakov, Chekhov and Bunin knew and felt nature.

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov is considered an adult writer.

In the last years of his life, Ivan Sergeevich suffered a misfortune: he lost his sight. But his memory retained the impressions of childhood, long-ago travels, painted him pictures of nature, and he wrote about it with infallible accuracy. Only now, of course, he could not write - he dictated his stories onto a tape recorder, and Lydia Ivanovna, his wife and assistant, then retyped the text on a typewriter.

Remembering, as if reliving what he had once seen, the old writer experienced the joy of former communication with nature - now, perhaps, the last joy.

"I'm doing literary work. The basis and joy of this work has always been and remains love for people, for my native country, for its nature, for the living bright world, of which I always felt like a part,” wrote Ivan Sergeevich shortly before his death.

Sokolov-Mikitov's books are written in an unusually clear and simple language. It is not for nothing that Russian language textbooks and anthologies so often use excerpts from his works.

The books of Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov engender love for the world around us, for our native country. They call for knowledge of nature, because what you love, you always want to know even more and even better. (According to V. Chernyshov YN No. 6/83 40-41)

Biography

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov, a Russian writer, naturalist and traveler, was born in the Oseki tract, in the Kaluga province, on May 30 (18), 1892, in the family of a clerk who served for a merchant who traded timber. Vanya spent her childhood and early youth in the Smolensk region, in the vastness of the Ugra. In 1910 he went to St. Petersburg, where he enrolled in courses Agriculture, and soon after that he got a job in Reval (now Tallinn) on a merchant ship, thanks to which he visited many countries in Europe, Asia and Africa over several years. In 1918, after demobilization, Ivan Sergeevich returned to the Smolensk region, to his parents. Here he worked as a teacher in a unified labor school. By this time, he had already published his first stories, which were noticed by Bunin and Kuprin.

In 1919, Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov signed up as a sailor on a merchant ship. The following year, 1920, Ivan Sergeevich, along with his entire crew, was decommissioned from the ship "Omsk", which was sold at auction in Hull (England) for debts. Thus began an unexpected forced long-term emigration. He lived in England for about a year and then, in 1921, moved to Germany. Finally, after almost two years abroad, Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov returns to his homeland, Russia. Long wanderings around various port shelters in Hull and London became the basis for the book “Siskin Lavra”, written in 1926.

Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov Subsequently, Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov repeatedly participated in Arctic expeditions led by the famous Otto Yulievich Schmidt. On the icebreaker Georgy Sedov, travelers went to the Arctic Ocean and Franz Josef Land, and once went to the rescue of the icebreaker Malygin. Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov participated in this expedition as a correspondent for the Izvestia newspaper. The experience of Arctic expeditions gave him a lot of material for the series of essays “White Shores”, as well as the story “The Rescue of the Ship”. You can read about the writer’s numerous and varied travels around his native country in the books “The Paths of Ships” (1934), “Lenkoran” (1934), “Swans Are Flying” (1936), “Northern Stories” (1939), “On the Awakened Land” ( 1941), “Stories about the Motherland” (1947) and in other works.

Ivan Sokolov-MikitovFor a quarter of a century, Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov often visited the village of Karacharovo, Konakovo district. Having visited relatives here in October 1951, the writer purchased a log house and began to personally build his “Karacharov” house. Since the summer of 1952, Ivan Sergeevich most spends a year in Karacharovo. Here he works on his now famous books “Childhood” (1953), “On the Warm Earth” (1954), “Sounds of the Earth” (1962), “Karacharov’s Records” (1968), “At the Holy Springs” (1969) and others works.

Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov was a member of the editorial board of the literary and artistic collection " Motherland". IN book publishing house region, his books “The First Hunt” (1953), “Leaf Faller” (1955), “Stories about the Motherland” (1956) and many others were published.

Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov Ivan Sergeevich often turned to the genre of memoirs; books such as “Dating with Childhood” and “Autobiographical Notes” were written in it. Until his last day, Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov was writing a book of his memoirs, “Old Meetings,” in which one can see “essays-portraits” dedicated to many of our famous writers- Maxim Gorky, Ivan Bunin, Alexander Kuprin, Mikhail Prishvin, Alexander Green, Alexander Tvardovsky. Also mentioned in it are polar explorer Pyotr Svirnenko, artist and scientist Nikolai Pinegin and many others.

Writers Alexander Tvardovsky, Viktor Nekrasov, Konstantin Fedin, Vladimir Soloukhin, many journalists and artists visited Ivan Sergeevich’s “Karacharovsky” house.

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov died on February 20, 1975. The urn with his ashes was buried in the cemetery in Gatchina. In 1981, a Memorial plaque.

Biography

Russian travel writer Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov was born in the Oseki tract of the Kaluga province on May 30 (18), 1892 in the family of a clerk of a timber merchant. The writer spent his childhood and early youth in the Smolensk region. In 1910, he enrolled in agricultural courses in St. Petersburg, however, he soon got a job in Reval (now Tallinn) on a merchant ship and for several years visited European, Asian and African ports. In 1918, Ivan Sergeevich was demobilized and went to his parents in the Smolensk region. He worked there as a teacher at a unified workers' school. By this time, he had already published the first stories noticed by Bunin and Kuprin.

Since 1919, Sokolov-Mikitov has been a sailor on a merchant ship. In 1920, from the steamship “Omsk”, sold at auction in Hull (England), Ivan Sergeevich, among the crew, was written off to the shore. Forced emigration began. He lived in England for about a year, and in 1921 he moved to Germany. After nearly two years abroad, Sokolov-Mikitov returns to Russia. Wanderings around the port lodging houses of Hull and London gave him material for “The Siskin Lavra” (1926).

After returning to his homeland, I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov participates in Arctic expeditions on the icebreaker “Georgiy Sedov”, headed by O.Yu. Schmidt. Expeditions to the Arctic Ocean and Franz Josef Land were followed by an expedition to rescue the icebreaker Malygin. Ivan Sergeevich participated in it as a correspondent for Izvestia. Arctic expeditions provide him with material for the series of essays “White Shores” and the short story “Saving the Ship.” The writer’s numerous travels around the country are described in the books “Lenkoran” (1934), “Paths of Ships” (1934), “Swans Are Flying” (1936), “Northern Stories” (1939), “On the Awakened Land” (1941), “Stories about the Motherland” (1947).

For a quarter of a century, the life of I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov was connected with Karacharovo, Konakovsky district. In October 1951, the writer visited his relatives, purchased a log house and began creating his “Karacharovsky” house.

Since the summer of 1952, Sokolov-Mikitov has spent most of the year in Karacharovo. Here Ivan Sergeevich worked on the books “Childhood” (1953), “On the Warm Land” (1954), “Sounds of the Earth” (1962), “Karacharov’s Records” (1968) and others. In the book “At the Holy Springs” (1969) he writes: “With a hunting rifle over my shoulders, I walked around the nearby forest lands and traveled in a boat along the Volga. I managed to visit the remote places of the Orsha Forest, on the Petrovsky Lakes, where not every year an inexperienced gentleman can get through. I met young and old people, listened to their stories, admired nature. While living in Karacharovo, I wrote a few short stories that depict my native nature, which is close to my heart.”

New chapters of the story “Childhood” were published in the regional literary and artistic collection “Native Land”. The writer was a member of the editorial board of the collection. The regional book publishing house published his books “The First Hunt” (1953), “Leaf Faller” (1955), “Stories about the Motherland” (1956), etc.

During the Karacharov period of time, Sokolov-Mikitov often turned to the memoir genre. Then “Autobiographical Notes” and “Childhood Dates” were written. The book of memoirs “Old Meetings,” which the author wrote until his last day, contains portrait essays writers M. Gorky, I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, M. Prishvin, K. Fedin, A. Green, A. Tvardovsky, polar explorer P. Svirnenko, artist and scientist N. Pinegin and others.

Writers A. Tvardovsky, V. Nekrasov, K. Fedin, V. Soloukhin, journalists, and artists visited the “Karacharovsky” house.

I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov died on February 20, 1975. The urn with his ashes was buried in the cemetery in Gatchina.

In 1981, a memorial plaque was installed on the “Karacharovsky” house.

Biography

He was born in the village of Oselki, Kaluga province, but while still an infant he was transported to the Smolensk province, his father’s homeland, where he spent his childhood, adolescence and youth.

He studied at the Smolensk Alexander Real School, but was expelled from the 5th grade “due to poor academic performance and for bad behavior on suspicion of belonging to student revolutionary organizations.” To continue his studies, Sokolov-Mikitov went to St. Petersburg in 1910 and entered a 4-year agricultural course at the Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture. There his talent as a writer began to take shape.

In St. Petersburg, Sokolov-Mikitov formed a wide circle of acquaintances, which largely determined his future fate. It included pilot G.V. Alekhnovich, traveler and naturalist Z.F. Svatosh, writers A.I. Kuprin, M.M. Prishvin, A.M. Remizov, V.Ya. Shishkov, A.S. Green. The young man became convinced that he had no inclination towards agronomic sciences, left the courses and began to attend literary debates and public libraries. In 1910, the first work was born - the fairy tale “The Salt of the Earth”.

In 1912, Sokolov-Mikitov moved to Revel (now Tallinn), where he worked as secretary of the newspaper “Revel Leaflet”, and from there he went on his first voyage as a sailor, visiting Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Africa, the Netherlands, England, and Italy. Sea travel was interrupted by the First World War. Having been demobilized in 1918, Sokolov-Mikitov went to his parents in the Smolensk region and worked there as a teacher at a unified labor school. By this time, he had already published the first stories noticed by Bunin and Kuprin.

In 1919 he re-entered the merchant navy. In 1920, from the steamship "Omsk", sold in Goole England (at auction), he, along with other crew members, was written off ashore. He lived in England and Germany, met A. N. Tolstoy, S. A. Yesenin and Isadora Duncan, A. M. Gorky.

In 1922, Sokolov-Mikitov returned to Russia and settled in the Smolensk region. Here he created his best works: the stories “Childhood”, “Helen”, “Chizhikov Lavra”, the cycles of stories “On the Nevestnitsa River”, “Across the Magpie Kingdom” and others. Most of them develop the theme of the Russian village and the fate of the Russian peasantry, which is close to the author. His work was highly appreciated by I. A. Bunin, A. I. Kuprin, M. Gorky.

In 1929, Sokolov-Mikitov moved with his family to Gatchina. During this period, he, as a correspondent for Izvestia, participated in the Arctic campaigns of the l/p "G. Sedov”, expedition to rescue the l/p “Malygin”. Arctic expeditions provided him with material for the series of essays “White Shores” and the short story “The Rescue of the Ship.” The writer’s numerous travels around the country are described in the books “Lankaran”, “Paths of Ships”, “Swans Are Flying”, “Northern Stories”, “On the Awakened Land”, “Stories about the Motherland”.

Sokolov-Mikitov is widely known as a children's writer. His books “Fox Dodges”, “Falling Leaves”, “Friendship of Animals”, “Karacharovsky House” and many others introduce the little reader to the colorful world of nature; collections of Russian children's books “On the Pebble”, “Zarya-zarenitsa” - with folk traditions and folklore.

During the war, Sokolov-Mikitov served in the forest protection department of the Perm region. There he met with V.V. Bianchi, wrote stories from the life of children in evacuation. In the summer of 1945 he returned with his family to Leningrad.

For a quarter of a century, Sokolov-Mikitov’s life was connected with Karacharovo, Konakovo district, where since the summer of 1952 he spent most of the year. Here work was carried out on the books “Childhood”, “On the Warm Earth”, “Sounds of the Earth”, “Karacharov’s Records” and others.

During this period, Sokolov-Mikitov often turned to the memoir genre. Then “Autobiographical Notes” and “Childhood Dates” were written. The book of memoirs “Old Meetings,” which the author wrote until his last day, contains portrait sketches of writers M. Gorky, I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, M. Prishvin, K. Fedin, A. Green, A. Tvardovsky, polar explorer P. Svirnenko, artist and scientist N. Pinegin and others.

Sokolov-Mikitov experienced a lot of grief in his personal life - he was destined to bury his three daughters.

In the last years of his life, the writer became blind. The last book memoirs “Old Meetings” was written under dictation and published after his death. The works of Sokolov-Mikitov have been translated into many languages of the world.

He died in Moscow, where he lived for the last 11 years of his life. The urn with ashes was buried in the family cemetery in Gatchina.

Bay (Mikitova) northeast of the Savich Peninsula on the western coast of the northern island of Novaya Zemlya. Named in 1930 by the expedition to the G. Sedov."

Biography (en.wikipedia.org)

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov was born in the Oseki tract, Kaluga province (now [[Peremyshl district] Kaluga region) in the family of Sergei Nikitich Sokolov - manager of the forest lands of the wealthy merchants Konshins.

In 1895, the family moved to their father’s homeland in the village of Kislovo, Dorogobuzh district (now Ugransky district, Smolensk region). When he was ten years old, his father took him to Smolensk where he enrolled him in the Smolensk Alexander Real School. At the school, Sokolov-Mikitov became interested in the ideas of revolution. For participation in underground revolutionary circles, Sokolov-Mikitov was expelled from the fifth grade of the school. In 1910, Sokolov-Mikitov left for St. Petersburg, where he began attending agricultural courses. In the same year he wrote his first work - the fairy tale “The Salt of the Earth”. Soon Sokolov-Mikitov realizes that he has no inclination for agricultural work, and begins to become more and more interested in literature. He attends literary circles, meets many famous writers Alexei Remizov, Alexander Green, Vyacheslav Shishkov, Mikhail Prishvin, Alexander Kuprin.

Since 1912, Sokolov-Mikitov worked in Revel as secretary of the newspaper “Revelsky Listok”. Soon he got a job on a merchant ship and visited many port cities in Europe and Africa. In 1915, in connection with the outbreak of the First World War, he returned to Russia. During the war, Sokolov-Mikitov, together with the famous pilot Gleb Alekhnovich, flew combat missions on the Russian bomber Ilya Muromets.

In 1919, Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov signed up as a sailor on the merchant ship Omsk. However, in 1920 in England, the ship was arrested and sold at auction for debts. For Sokolov-Mikitov, forced emigration began. He lived in England for a year, and then in 1921 he moved to Germany. In 1922, Sokolov-Mikitov met in Berlin with Maxim Gorky, who helped him obtain the documents necessary to return to his homeland.

After returning to Russia, Sokolov-Mikitov travels a lot, participating in Arctic expeditions on the icebreaker Georgiy Sedov, led by Otto Schmidt. Expeditions to the Arctic Ocean, Franz Josef Land and Severnaya Zemlya were followed by an expedition to rescue the icebreaker "Malygin", in which he participated as a correspondent for Izvestia.

In 1930-1931 the cycles “Overseas Stories”, “On White Earth” and the story “Childhood” were published.

In 1929-1934, Sokolov-Mikitov lived and worked in Gatchina. They often come to visit him famous writers Evgeny Zamyatin, Vyacheslav Shishkov, Vitaly Bianchi, Konstantin Fedin. The famous hunting writer Nikolai Anatolyevich Zvorykin (1873-1937) also lived in his house for a long time.

During World War II, Sokolov-Mikitov worked in Molotov as a special correspondent for Izvestia. In the summer of 1945 he returned to Leningrad.

Beginning in the summer of 1952, Sokolov-Mikitov began to live in a house he built with his own hands in the village of Karacharovo, Konakovsky district. Here he writes most of his works.

His prose is expressive and visual primarily in cases where he adheres to his own experience; it is weaker when the writer conveys what he has heard.

Writers Alexander Tvardovsky, Viktor Nekrasov, Konstantin Fedin, Vladimir Soloukhin, many artists and journalists visited his “Karacharovsky” house.

Sokolov-Mikitov died on February 20, 1975 in Moscow. According to his will, the urn with his ashes was buried in the New Cemetery in Gatchina. In 1983, a monument was erected at the burial site; the initiator was the Gatchina city branch of VOOPIiK. His relatives are also buried next to Ivan Sergeevich - his mother Maria Ivanovna Sokolova (1870-1939) and daughters Elena (1926-1951) and Lydia (1928-1931).

Family

Mother - Kaluga peasant Maria Ivanovna Sokolova (1870-1939)
Father - clerk, forestry manager Sergei Nikitich Sokolov.
Wife - Lidia Ivanovna Sokolova. They met at the Moscow publishing house “Krug”.

After their marriage, they had three daughters. The eldest is Irina (Arina), the middle is Elena (Alena), the youngest is Lydia. All of them died while their parents were still alive. The youngest daughter died of illness, ten years later she died eldest daughter. The middle daughter Elena drowned in 1951 on the Karelian Isthmus.
Grandson - Minister of Culture of Russia (2004-2008), rector of the Moscow Conservatory (2001-2004, then from 2009), professor Alexander Sergeevich Sokolov.

Essays

* Lankaran (1934)
* The Ways of Ships (1934)
* Swans Are Flying (1936)
* Northern Tales (1939)
* On the awakened earth (1941)
* Stories about the Motherland (1947)
* Childhood (1953)
* First Hunt (1953)
* On Warm Earth (1954)
* Listopadnichek (1955)
* Sounds of the Earth (1962)
* Karacharov records (1968)
* At the Holy Springs (1969)

Memory

* In 1981, in Karacharovo, a memorial plaque was installed in the house where Sokolov-Mikitov lived. In 2007, a memorial plaque was unveiled in St. Petersburg in the house where Sokolov-Mikitov lived. In 2008 in the village. Poldnevo, Ugransky district, Smolensk region, the house-museum of Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov, transported from the village of Kislovo, was opened.

Notes

1. Mikitov, in accordance with the clarification of the writer’s grandson, former minister culture of the Russian Federation Sokolov, newspaper "Star Boulevard, No. 30, 2010 http://www.zbulvar.ru/newspaper/streaks/articles/detail.php?STID=29827&phrase_id=459851
2. Kazak V. Lexikon of Russian literature of the 20th century = Lexikon der russischen Literatur ab 1917. - M.: RIK "Culture", 1996. - 492 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-8334-0019-8. - P. 393.
3. Burlakov A.V. Gatchina necropolis. Historical cemeteries of the city of Gatchina and its environs. - Gatchina: Latona Printing House, 2009. - 186 p. - 750 copies.

The name of the ship on which the Mikit falcons served. sea ​​wind

Study at the Smolensk real school

Studying in St. Petersburg and fateful acquaintances

The last years of the writer's life

“There’s nothing to regret” - and yet it’s a pity

Writer at 25

Origins: folklore and “Russian nature”

"No people"

"Sea" stories

Ivan and the fog

Quiet classic

The name of the ship on which the Mikit falcons served. sea wind