Who is Vasily Aksenov? Are things love interests? If anything happens, they won’t hit you on your passport.

Premiere on Channel One: the multi-part film “Mysterious Passion” latest novel Vasily Aksenov, in which the author “encrypted” the names and surnames of his contemporaries. The prototypes of the heroes are the idols of the sixties: Robert Er - Robert Rozhdestvensky, Anton Andreotis - Andrei Voznesensky, Nella Akhho - Bella Akhmadulina, Yan Tushinsky - Evgeny Yevtushenko, Vasily Aksyonov himself under the nickname Vaxon and many others. AiF.ru invites you to recall the real biographies of the prototypes of the main characters of the novel.

Robert Rozhdestvensky

Creation: The first serious publications of Rozhdestvensky’s poems appeared in the Petrozavodsk magazine “At the Turnover” when the poet was only 18 years old. At that time he was just trying to enter the Literary Institute. M. Gorky, where he was accepted, but only on the second attempt. Rozhdestvensky’s first works contained a lot of civic pathos; he wrote about space exploration and the difficulties Everyday life. But the older the writer became, the more lyrical his poetry seemed, and love lyrics came to the fore.

Robert Rozhdestvensky. Photo: RIA Novosti / Boris Kaufman

Popularity of Rozhdestvensky Soviet years was huge: in the 60s he was one of those who conquered the Polytechnic and sports palaces, his creative evenings were held to full houses, and books were published in huge editions.

Popular works: Rozhdestvensky’s famous poems about love are known in almost all countries, and many are familiar with his work thanks to the songs “My Years”, “Echo of Love”, “Ticket to Childhood”, “Gravity of the Earth”. He is the author of the words of the legendary song “Moments” from the movie Tatiana Lioznova"Seventeen Moments of Spring".

Personal life: Robert's entire personal life was connected with Alla Kireeva, artist and literary critic . He dedicated all his love poems to her, and she became the mother of his two daughters.

Death: Rozhdestvensky died in Moscow at the age of 62. In 1990, doctors gave the poet a terrible diagnosis: a malignant brain tumor. But after a successful operation, he managed to live another 4 years.

Interesting Facts: The poet stuttered badly, especially when he was worried, much less speaking in public, and this made him even more charming. But there was a reason for this speech disorder: they say that in childhood, in front of the poet’s eyes, his friend was hit by a car, after which Rozhdestvensky began to stutter.

Andrey Voznesensky

Creation: Voznesensky’s first collection, “Mosaic,” was published in 1958, when the poet was 26 years old. He immediately incurred the wrath of the authorities, because he did not reflect the principles that were instilled at that time. Then Voznesensky aroused sharp rejection among the Soviet literary community: his lyrics contained many daring metaphors and comparisons, an unusual rhythm of verse and a non-standard reflection of the tragedy of the Great Patriotic War. In 1963, Nikita Khrushchev himself sharply criticized the poet: “Look, what a Pasternak you found!.. Go to the damn grandmother. Get out, Mr. Voznesensky, to your masters!” Only in the 1970s did the persecution of the poet end and he finally began to be published in large numbers.

Popular works: Voznesensky was the author of eight poems and more than forty poetry collections. He is one of the creators of the rock opera “Juno and Avos” and the author of the lyrics famous romance"I will never forget you". Many popular pop songs were written based on his poems, including “Million Red roses", "Encore song", "Start over", "Give me back the music."

Personal life: Voznesensky lived for forty-six years in happy marriage With theater and film critic, writer Zoya Boguslavskaya, who in 1964 left her husband for famous author after he dedicated the poem "Uzzah" to her.

Death: In 1995, Voznesensky was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, the poet began to lose his voice, and the muscles of his throat and limbs began to weaken. He died at home in the arms of his beloved wife at the age of 77 after a second stroke.

Interesting Facts: Popular in the 90s performed Evgenia Osina The song “The Girl is Crying in the Machine” was written based on Voznesensky’s poem “First Ice”. In the late 60s, the song “First Ice” was popular in urban courtyard culture, and in different years it was performed Nina Dorda and VIA "Jolly Fellows".

Bella Akhmadulina

Creation: Bella Akhmadulina began writing poetry back in school years, and the first publication was published in the magazine “October” when the author was only 18 years old. Many Soviet critics considered Akhmadulina’s poetry “irrelevant,” “vulgar,” and “banal,” but the young poetess, on the contrary, gained enormous popularity among readers. Despite her obvious talent, Akhmadulina was expelled from the Literary Institute for refusing to support bullying Boris Pasternak. Later she was restored and even given a diploma with honors, but along with Yevtushenko and Voznesensky Soviet authority never supported her.

Popular works: One of the most famous poems Akhmadulina is “On My Street Which Year...”, which became famous thanks to the film Eldara Ryazanova"Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath!". The works of the poetess are also widely known: “And finally, I will say...”, “Oh, my shy hero...”, “From the depths of my adversity...”.

Personal life: Akhmadulina was married four times: to Evgeniy Yevtushenko, behind writer Yuri Nagibin, behind screenwriter Eldar Kuliev and for theater artist Boris Messerer.

Death: IN last years During her life, Akhmadulina was seriously ill. In 2010, at the age of 73, she died at her dacha in the village of Peredelkino near Moscow.

Interesting Facts: In 1964, Akhmadulina played a young journalist in the film Vasily Shukshina“There lives such a guy.” And six years later she starred in another film: “Sport, Sports, Sports.”

Evgeniy Yevtushenko

Creation: The poet's first poem was published when he was 17 years old, and the author's talent was so obvious that he was accepted into the Literary Institute without a school certificate. Then, in 1952, he became the youngest member of the USSR Writers' Union, bypassing the stage of candidate member of the joint venture.

The beginning of his creativity coincided with the Khrushchev thaw, and Yevtushenko’s fresh poems turned out to be in tune with the positive sentiments of young people. In the early 1960s, he was one of the first among poets to appear on stage, and his artistry and special manner of reading poetry contributed to his success.

In 1957, Yevtushenko was expelled from the institute for supporting the novel. Vladimir Dudintsev“Not by bread alone,” but he continued to participate in various protests and was in opposition to the authorities. In 1991, Yevtushenko signed a contract with an American university and left the country forever.

Personal life: Yevgeny Yevtushenko was officially married four times: to Bella Akhmadulina, Galina Sokol-Lukonina, my own fan Jen Butler and on Maria Novikova, with whom he still lives.

Popular works: In Yevtushenko’s bibliography there is a place not only for poetry, but also prose works. The most famous of them are the autobiographies “Premature Autobiography” and “Wolf Passport”. He is also the author of the lyrics to well-known songs: “Do the Russians want war,” “And it’s snowing,” “Waltz about a waltz,” “This is what’s happening to me.”

Interesting Facts: After the publication of the poem “Babi Yar,” Yevgeny Yevtushenko was “excommunicated” from Ukraine for twenty years: he was not allowed to hold creative evenings and meetings with poetry lovers.

Vasily Aksyonov

Creation: In 1956, Aksyonov graduated from Leningrad medical school. He worked as a doctor in the North, in Karelia, in Leningrad, in Moscow. His first stories were published in the magazine “Yunost” already in 1958, but it took time for Aksyonov to give up medicine and take up writing seriously. His novels and stories turned out to be very popular, but aroused disapproval from the authorities: the writer was constantly accused of hidden anti-Sovietism. After the end of the “thaw” and the scandal with the publication of the uncensored almanac “Metropol” in the USSR, it was no longer published: as a sign of protest, Aksyonov voluntarily resigned from the Writers’ Union.

Vasily Aksenov. Photo: RIA Novosti

Popular works: Most popular works The author is considered to be “The Moscow Saga”, “Trilogy”, “Burn” and “Island of Crimea”, unpublished due to censorship in the USSR. As well as his last completed novel, Mysterious Passion.

Personal life: Vasily Aksenov was married twice, his first wife was Kira Mendeleeva, and second Maya Carmen, which the poet himself called main passion all my life.

Death: Aksenov died in 2009 at the age of 77 after a long illness.

Interesting Facts: After Aksenov was deprived Soviet citizenship, he taught Russian literature at several US universities. In 1990, Aksenov and his wife were returned to Russian citizenship, but he never returned to his homeland, only appearing in Moscow from time to time.

Born on August 20, 1932 in Kazan, into a family of party workers. Father - Aksenov Pavel Vasilievich (born 1899). Mother - Ginzburg Evgenia Semyonovna (born 1904), author widely famous memoirs about Stalin’s camps, including the book “Steep Route”. Wife – Aksenova Maya Afanasyevna (born 1930). The son from his first marriage is Alexey Vasilyevich Aksenov (born in 1960).

At the end of the 1930s, V. Aksenov’s parents were repressed. According to the writer, the world opened up for him in Magadan, where at the age of 16 he came to visit his mother, who was serving exile. A seven-day flight across the entire continent is an endless journey across endless expanses (on the road during the day, landing at night major cities: Sverdlovsk, Krasnoyarsk, Okhotsk) - made an indelible impression on him: the geography that was studied at school using textbooks and maps was now revealed to him in reality.

Magadan, paradoxically, struck me with its freedom: in the evenings a “salon” gathered in my mother’s barracks. In the company of “former camp intellectuals” they talked about things that Vasily had never even suspected before. The future writer was shocked by the breadth of the problems discussed and the discussions about the fate of humanity. And the proximity to Alaska and Pacific Ocean outside the window the horizons opened up...

The first profession that Vasily Pavlovich mastered was the profession of a doctor. After graduating from the 1st Leningrad Medical Institute, Vasily Aksenov worked as a therapist at the quarantine station of the Leningrad seaport (1956–1957). He will describe this period of life - in anticipation of meeting with distant countries, dreams of travel - later in the novel “Colleagues”. Then Vasily Aksenov worked at the Vodzdravtdel hospital in the village of Ascension on Lake Onega (1957–1958) and at the Moscow Regional Tuberculosis Dispensary (1958–1960).

Vasily Aksenov made his debut as a writer in 1959. And his first novel, “Colleagues” (1960), immediately brought him wide fame, was subsequently republished many times and was embodied on stage and screen. The novel published next Star ticket"(1961) so obviously consolidated the success of the young prose writer that he decided to take up professional literary work. These and subsequent novels - “Oranges from Morocco” (1962) and “It’s time, my friend, it’s time” (1964) strengthened V. Aksenov’s fame as one of the leaders of “young prose”, which declared itself at the turn of the 1950s–1960s .

V. Aksenov began his path in art with the depiction of youth skeptical of the then Soviet reality with their characteristic nihilism, spontaneous sense of freedom, interest in western music and literature - with everything that opposed the accepted spiritual guidelines. The confessional nature of V. Aksenov’s prose, the writer’s sympathetic attention to inner world, psychology and even slang younger generation could not have been more consistent with the spiritual life of society. At this time, V. Aksenov became one of the most actively publishing and readable authors magazine "Youth", for several years being a member of its editorial board.

By the mid-1960s it was intensifying philosophical richness prose by V. Aksenov, reflecting on the reasons for the failure of the “thaw”, connecting his best hopes. The writer’s works, their focus on the problems of the “Thaw” period, and above all, the eternal conflict of generations, which took on especially sharp forms in the context of the denial of the totalitarian past characteristic of that time, caused heated controversy in criticism and attacks from censorship. Among the works published in the USSR from this period of the writer’s work are the collections of stories “Catapult” (1966) and “Halfway to the Moon” (1967), the novels “Love of Electricity” (1969), “My Grandfather is a Monument” (1970), “ A chest in which something is knocking" (1973), "In Search of a Genre" (1977). During this period, some of the works written by V. Aksenov were not published for censorship reasons. Among them are the novels “The Steel Bird” and “Our Golden Iron.” They were later published abroad, during the writer’s emigration.

V. Aksenov’s appeal to the individual contributed to the restructuring of the individual creative manner a writer who now combines the real and the unreal, the ordinary and the sublime within one work. Different plans are intertwined especially skillfully in V. Aksenov’s novel “The Burn” (1976), which was then banned by censorship. In it, the author managed to fully depict life Russian intelligentsia at the turn of the 1960s–1970s. The heroes of the novel, each of whom is obsessed with his creative idea, are in a state of tragic discord with the existing system in their country: the desire to hide from it turns out to be futile. The appearance and behavior of the novel's heroes are determined by their opposition to the crowd generated by this system, to which everything lofty and bright is alien. The writer sees a way out for them in striving for God, in spiritual insight.

The appearance in 1968 of the story “Overstocked Barrels” indicates a change in the direction of the writer’s aesthetic searches, now coming out, according to him in my own words, to “total satire”. Here the amazing absurdity of the world in which the characters of the story live, which V. Aksenov called a “surreal thing”, is revealed. Change creative position V. Aksenov testified not only to the actual artistic search of the writer, who now abandoned the principle of verisimilitude in his works, preferring to him the image of the “illusion of reality”; these changes themselves were caused by his growing conviction that “reality is so absurd that, using the method of absurdization and surrealism, the writer does not introduce absurdity into his literature, but, on the contrary, by this method he seems to be trying to harmonize the falling apart reality... »

Since that time, criticism of V. Aksenov and his works has become increasingly harsh. Even the form to which the writer now turned, which was perceived as non-Soviet and non-folk, caused attacks: this was how, in particular, V. Aksenov’s play “Always on Sale” staged at the Sovremennik Theater was assessed, indicating the transition of its author to avant-garde positions in art . V. Aksenov’s situation became even more complicated when, in 1977–1978, his works began to appear abroad (primarily in the USA). In 1979, V. Aksenov, together with A. Bitov, V. Erofeev, F. Iskander, E. Popov, B. Akhmadulina, was the compiler and author of the “Metropol” almanac, which united writers who dissociated themselves from socialist realism. Never published in the Soviet censored press, the almanac was published in the USA and France. In the USSR, he was immediately criticized by the authorities, who saw in him an attempt to take literature out of the control of state ideology. V. Aksenov was expelled from the Union of Writers and the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR. On July 22, 1980, he left for the United States and was soon deprived of Soviet citizenship.

The novels “Our Golden Iron” (1973, 1980), “Burn” (1976, 1980), “Island of Crimea” (1979, 1981), written by V. Aksenov in Russia, but published for the first time only after the writer’s arrival in America, are published in Washington. collection of short stories “Right to the Island” (1981). New novels by V. Aksenov are published in the USA: “Paper Landscape” (1982), “Say the Raisin” (1985), “In Search of the Sad Baby” (1986), the “Moscow Saga” trilogy (novels “Generation of Winter” - 1989, “War” and prison" - 1991, "Prison and the world" - 1993), collection of stories "Negative positive hero"(1995), "New Sweet Style" (1997), "Caesarean Glow" (2000). The works he wrote in exile convince us that life home country, what happens in it continues to remain the focus of the writer’s attention.

After V. Aksenov returned his citizenship in 1990, he often comes to Russia, where his works begin to be published again (including in the magazine “Youth”) (in addition to those already mentioned - “My Grandfather is a Monument”, 1991; “Rendezvous”, 1992 ), a collection of his works is published. In June 1993, the first Aksenov readings took place in Samara. In 1993–1994, his “Moscow Saga” was published in Russia, based on which director D. Barshchevsky made a multi-part series TV movie(the artist of this painting is A. Aksenov, the writer’s son). Russian publishing houses have published new novels by the writer “The Voltairians and Voltaireans” (2004), “Moscow-kva-kva” (2006), a collection of radio essays “A Decade of Slander” (2004), which includes his speeches on Radio Liberty over 10 years (1981–1991).

Vasily Aksenov is in France completing work on a new novel, Rare Earths. In addition to the already mentioned works, V. Aksenov wrote the story “Round the clock non-stop”, the stories “Change of Lifestyle”, “Breakfasts in 1943”, “Dad, Fold It Down”, “Palmer’s Second Breakaway”, “Gikki and Baby Cassandra” , "Story about basketball team, playing basketball”, “For basketball lovers”, “Victory”, “Simple in the world of jazz”, “A million separations”, “Out of season” and others. The novel “Yolk of the Egg” was written by V. Aksenov in English.

V. Aksenov is the author of a number of works for drama theater(plays “Always on Sale”, 1965; “Your Killer”, 1966; “The Four Temperaments”, 1968; “Aristophaniana with Frogs”, 1968; “Heron”, 1980; “Woe, Woe, Burn”, 1998; “Aurora” Korelika", 1999; "Ah, Arthur Schopenhauer", 2000) and film scripts (films "When the Bridges Are Drawed", 1961; "My younger brother", 1962; "Marble House", 1973; "Central", 1976; “While the Dream Goes Wild”, 1980).

In the USA, V. Aksenov was awarded the honorary title of Doctor of Humane Letters. He is a member of the Pen Club and the American Authors League. Since 1981, V. Aksenov has been a professor of Russian literature at various US universities: the Kennan Institute (1981–1982), John Washington University (1982–1983), Goucher University (1983–1988), George Mason University (1988–2004). In 2004, V. Aksenov graduated teaching career. That same year, he was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus at George Mason University.

In 1980–1988, V. Aksenov actively collaborated with the Voice of America radio station as a journalist. Author of numerous journal articles and reviews in English. Heads the jury of the international film festival "Island of Crimea". In 2004, Vasily Aksenov became the laureate of the main literary prize countries "Booker - Open Russia", which is awarded for best novel year, written in Russian. Died on June 6, 2009.

On Channel One there is a series “Mysterious Passion” based on the novel by Vasily Aksenov. How was the personal life and biography of Vasily Aksenov?

Vasily Aksenov - Russian writer, film playwright, professor of Russian literature at various US universities.

Family of Vasily Aksenov. Father - Aksyonov Pavel Vasilievich was the chairman of the Kazan City Council, a member of the bureau of the Tatar regional party committee.

Mother - Ginzburg Evgenia Semyonovna was a teacher at Kazansky Pedagogical Institute, head of the cultural department of the newspaper "Red Tataria", author of memoirs about Stalin's camps, including "Steep Route".

The family had three children: Vasily, and a brother and sister from their parents’ first marriages - Alexey and Maya.

At the end of the 1930s, when Vasily Aksenov was five years old, his parents were arrested and convicted: his mother was sentenced to 10 years in prison, his father to capital punishment, which was later replaced by 15 years in prison.

Maya and Alexei were taken in by relatives, and Vasily, as an orphan, was sent to the Kostroma orphanage for the children of prisoners.

Six months later, Aksenov’s uncle, Adrian Vasilyevich (father’s brother), was able to take Vasily from the orphanage. He returned to Kazan, lived with his aunt until he was 16, studied eight grades at high school No. 19 named after. V. G. Belinsky.

When Vasily Aksenov turned 16 years old, he came to the capital of Kolyma - the city of Magadan, where his mother, Evgenia Ginzburg, was located. Their meeting is described by Ginzburg in the book “Steep Route”.

After graduating from school, Aksyonov left Magadan to go to college. In 1950 he became a student at the Kazan Medical Institute, and four years later he transferred to the First Leningrad Medical Institute named after I.P. Pavlov.

After graduation, Aksyonov worked as a therapist at the quarantine station of the Leningrad seaport. Then Vasily Aksenov worked at the Vodzdravtdel hospital in the village of Ascension on Lake Onega (1957–1958) and at the Moscow Regional Tuberculosis Dispensary (1958–1960).

First literary experience Vasily Aksyonova dates back to her student years.

Since 1960, Vasily Aksenov has been a professional writer.

In 1979, Vasily Aksyonov became one of the organizers and authors of the uncensored almanac "Metropol", around which a violent political scandal erupted. Two authors of the almanac - Evgeny Popov and Viktor Erofeev - were expelled from the Union of Writers of the USSR.

As a sign of protest, Inna Lisnyanskaya, Semyon Lipkin and Vasily Aksyonov announced their withdrawal from the Writers' Union.

On July 22, 1980, Aksyonov left at the invitation for the United States, after which he and his wife were deprived of Soviet citizenship.

In 1990, Vasily Aksenov was returned to Soviet citizenship.

In 1992, the Moscow Saga trilogy was published, which was filmed in 2004.

In 2008, the writer suffered a stroke. Until 2009, he was in a coma. All this time, his beloved wife, Maya Carmen, was next to him.

The personal life of Vasily Aksenov was not easy.

His first wife is Kira Ludvigovna Mendeleva (1934-2013), daughter of brigade commander Lajos (Ludwig Matveevich) Gavro and granddaughter of the famous pediatrician and healthcare organizer Yulia Aronovna Mendeleva, founder and first rector of the Leningrad Pediatric Medical Institute.

Aksenov's second wife is Maya Carmen. When they met, they were both married.

Maya Afanasyevna (Zmeul) Aksyonova was born in 1930.

Her first husband was foreign trade worker Maurice Ovchinnikov. Three years later, the couple had a daughter, Elena. But soon the marriage collapsed. Maya met famous director Romana Carmena and fell in love.

He left his family for her sake - he divorced his wife Nina Orlova, with whom he lived for 20 years.

Maya Carmen graduated from the Institute of Foreign Trade, worked at the Chamber of Commerce, and taught Russian in America.

In 1970, Maya Carmen and Vasily Aksenov met in Yalta. After this, Vasily Aksenov and Maya Carmen began dating.

Maya Carmen could not part with her husband Roman Carmen. Only in 1978, after his death, lovers were able to legalize their relationship. Vasily Aksenov divorced his wife Kira.

In May 1980, Vasily Aksenov and Maya Carmen got married. We celebrated the event in Peredelkino, at the dacha, where close friends gathered.

Vasily Aksenov has a son - Alexey Vasilyevich Aksenov. He was born in 1960, production designer.

In addition, the writer raised his stepdaughter Elena, the daughter of his second wife.

In the summer of 2008, Elena died suddenly. Earlier in 1999, Maya’s 26-year-old grandson Ivan died after falling out of a window.

I cannot call Aksenov a great writer of the 20th century. He has a peculiar view of art, which can be explained by the difficult life in orphanage and resentment towards the government for the repression of parents. Probably for this reason he became a strong anti-Stalinist. For which he was expelled from the USSR. Almost every work of his shows hostility towards the system existing at that time. If we consider this story, then oranges here act as a kind of symbol of freedom. But this symbol is small, there is not enough for everyone, which means it must be divided. The two main heroines are “divided” in the same way. More precisely, they themselves are torn, not knowing what choice to make. I will definitely re-read the book when it comes out on sale. And I advise all lovers of prose of the 60s to familiarize themselves with it.

I really love Aksenov’s prose! He writes wonderfully! Both adults and children can understand his stories. I became acquainted with this work back in adolescence. Then it made a huge impression on me! Actually, oranges are used here rather in figuratively. But the main message is that in the era of the 60s it was an unusual and scarce product, especially in Far East. The orange here acts as a symbol of the sun, a breakthrough and a miracle accomplished! Perhaps someone will find references to the famous rhyme: “We shared an orange...”, but in my opinion this is too primitive a comparison. The most important thing is that this book is about people, not about fruits. I'm very glad to be able to buy it in hardcover again.

Catherine

I had never read Vasily Aksenov’s stories before, so I was only familiar with the novels. I read this book and was very impressed! Moreover, I liked the language of the narration - easy, relaxed and at the same time meaningful, literary, literate! I liked the way the author puts interesting thoughts into the characters’ mouths, how he endows them with personalities and habits. You don’t even notice how you involuntarily begin to feel some kind of kinship with them. After reading, there is a feeling that you don’t want to let them go, you want to continue to follow their destinies.
The book is beautifully designed, this edition is truly a pleasure to hold in your hands! Despite the impressive volume, the stories are read easily and quickly, one might even say that you don’t notice how you are approaching the end of the story.

Thanks to this book, Vasily Aksenova discovered herself in a new way! Previously, this author was exclusively a novelist for me, but now I discovered him as a magnificent storyteller. This is an example of wonderful intellectual prose that makes you think about many things, rethink your attitude to life, be sad in some places and laugh in others... I admit honestly, I liked this book even more than “Island of Crimea.” Maybe because I, in principle, gravitate more towards small form storytelling, of course. But Aksenov is certainly talented and amazing writer, whose work is absolutely necessary to study.

I began to read the novel as a historical one, and not a fantasy one, which it actually is (if two assumptions, one geographical, the other historical, can make a novel fantastic? And somewhere up to the twentieth page I was in complete bewilderment, until it finally dawned on me to go to Wikipedia and read that the novel is a historical hoax that has two assumptions: Crimea is an island, not a peninsula, and it was never Soviet, the White Guard emigrants who fled after the revolution of '17 turned Crimea into a prosperous democratic state. And the purpose of the novel is to expose the flawed political system Soviet Union.
Despite my dislike for “political pamphlets,” as some reviewers call the novel, I received great pleasure from reading, mostly, really, from love scenes, from the description of the beauties of Crimea and the life of its inhabitants, from family relations Luchnikovs and Lunins. Speaking, by the way, surnames. The main character Andrei Luchnikov is obviously the Sun, he is even called somewhere in the text “a ray of light in dark kingdom", and his long-time love Tatyana Lunina is the Moon, as well as the image of the homeland, the homeland to which the hero strives to return. That is why she leaves him towards the end of the novel, since in the blindness of his ideological excitement he not only ceases to notice her, but also to love her (their last bed scene- almost rape).
But, in order.
Three generations of vacancies (temporarily evacuated) Luchnikovs: grandfather, son, grandson - these are representatives of one of the most influential families on the OK (Island of Crimea), they are also representatives of three different ideological directions: grandfather Arseny Luchnikov is a supporter of the old, pre-revolutionary Russia, he and the provisional government of the island are heirs of noble honor, officers, old people who never surrendered to the Red regime (by the way, they surrender to the Red occupiers at the end of the novel, but no one needs their honor and dignity anymore - that’s in the past). Son Andrey Luchnikov, Chief Editor and the owner of the magazine "Russian Courier", racing driver, womanizer, James Bond and Batman in one bottle, as well as the creator and engine of Ideas Common Destiny, which embodies the longing of a Russian emigrant for his homeland, agreeing to any reunion with her out of the best intentions - to be useful to her. Anton Luchnikov - the grandson of Arseny and the son of Andrey - a hippie, a man of the world, a child of capitalist progress and, as they say now, liberal-humanistic ideals, having arrived on the island after long wanderings around the world, he connects to political movement Yaks - a new nation that mixed Russians, Tatars and Europeans, and is trying not only to develop a unified political strategy, but also to create own language. And so, in fact, this family contradiction of views seems to be interpolated throughout the novel, but the confrontation of these forces, embodied in some kind of table disputes, bathhouse gatherings, behind-the-scenes tactics and behind-the-scenes games, and even in a rally, looks rather naive, overly glamorous and, despite the abundance of profanity, it’s somehow family-friendly. From the very beginning, no one particularly doubts that the main truth and strength lie with Andrey Luchnikov and his idea of ​​a Common Fate, which really wins. And only in this way, having won, can it discredit itself, since instead of a reasonable and mutually beneficial unification of the island with the Soviet Union, there is an absurd and treacherous attack on the island under the guise of the “Spring Games,” although Crimea itself asked for annexation. The main characters are waiting for people to come to them and ask how everything works. Nobody asks anyone, almost all the main characters die. And life from a free and colorful fair immediately turns into the absurdity of propaganda, false triumphs, imperial stupidity and senseless violence.

Of the minuses, the author fails to show the very Russia with which he longs for unity main character. Soviet Union shown only from the bad side - this is an empire of lies, informers and fear. This is obviously how the author sees it. However, he seems to be trying to reconcile the Russian emigration with the Soviet Union (I think this was an urgent task in the 70s), but the events of the novel show that the Red Empire will simply swallow the emigrants, like a merciless glowing shark (the image of the homeland or party, which pursued one of the GB employees, Kuzenkov Marlen Mikhailovich, who went crazy and was killed by the storm).

I would like to talk about the image of the main character. At times it seemed to me that I was reading about Dunno in Sunny city, only Dunno has matured, he has an adult son (and at the end of the novel a grandson is born), he drinks a lot, plays political games, and, like James Bond, without fear or reproach, fucks young beauties and runs away from the pursuit of any intelligence agencies in the world, but nevertheless, he remains Dunno, since he does not realize the fact that is obvious to all the other characters in the novel about the fatality for himself and his loved ones of the annexation of Crimea to the Soviet Union.

Overall, the work leaves a contradictory impression. Although many reviewers are inclined to interpret it unambiguously, to see it as an exposure of the “Soviet Deputies”, the imperial habits of Russia, and sometimes even as a statement by the author about the total inferiority and limitations of the Russian nation as a whole. I wouldn't be so clear in my assessments.
The novel is, without a doubt, iconic. The fact that the temporary head of Crimea Aksenov (note, two coincidences! “Temporary” and “Aksenov”) asked for the annexation of Crimea to Russia, the events in which it happened, I admit, gives me goosebumps. The writers again either prophesied or predicted. And if you don’t go into subtleties, then, in my opinion, this is a warning and prejudice against the return of the “Council of Deputies” (Stepanida Vlasyevna, as she is called in the novel). And in this sense, today, when “Crimea is Ours,” the novel is even more relevant than ever, because it warns and fuels the fears with which the liberal-minded intelligentsia is full.
On the other hand, the main character Andrei Luch still evokes sympathy from the author and the reader, he is still a superhero, albeit in the ironic Aksenov format, yet most of us understand the protagonist’s longing for his homeland, and his desire to reunite let even at the cost own life, we are close to the author’s attempt to discuss with himself and with the reader about national idea, without which it is still impossible... Without her, they will still look for her.

Aksenov Vasily Pavlovich is a well-known Russian writer in wide circles. His works, imbued with the spirit of freethinking, tough and touching, sometimes surreal, do not leave any reader indifferent. The article will examine the biography of Vasily Aksenov and provide a list of his most interesting literary works.

early years

In 1932, on August 20, in the city of Kazan, Pavel Aksenov, chairman of the Kazan City Council, and Evgenia Ginzburg, a teacher at the Kazan Pedagogical Institute, had a son, Vasily. According to the family, he was already the third child, but the only one they shared. When the boy was not yet five years old, both parents (first his mother, then his father) were arrested and then sentenced to ten years in prison each. Having passed Stalin's camps, will subsequently publish a book of memoirs about the era of repression, “Steep Route,” which tells the story of eighteen years spent in prisons, exile, and Kolyma camps. But this is not about that now, we are interested in the biography of Vasily Aksenov.

After the imprisonment of the parents of the older children - Alyosha (son of Evgenia Ginzburg) and Maya (daughter of Pavel Aksenov) - they were taken into care by relatives. And Vasya was forcibly sent to an orphanage for children of convicts (the boy’s grandmothers wanted to keep him with them, but they were not allowed to do so). In 1938, Pyotr Aksenov’s brother, Andreyan, found the child in the Kostroma orphanage and took him to him. Until 1948, Vasya lived with a paternal relative, Moti Aksenova, until the boy’s mother, released from prison in 1947, obtained permission for her son to move to her in Kolyma. Later writer Vasily Aksenov will describe his Magadan youth in the novel “Burn”.

Education and work

In 1956, the guy graduated from the Leningrad Medical Institute and was assigned to work as a doctor at the Baltic Shipping Company on long-distance vessels. However, he was not given access, despite the fact that his parents had been rehabilitated by that time. There is information that Vasily Aksenov worked as a quarantine doctor in Karelia, in the Far North, in the Moscow tuberculosis hospital (according to other information, he was a consultant at the Tuberculosis Research Institute in Moscow), as well as in the sea trade port of Leningrad.

Beginning of literary activity

Aksenov can be considered a professional writer since 1960. In 1959, he wrote the story “Colleagues” (based on it in 1962, a film of the same name was made), in 1960, the work “Star Ticket” (the film “My Little Brother” was also based on it in 1962), two years later - the story “Oranges from Morocco”, and in 1963 - the novel “It’s Time, My Friend, It’s Time.” Then Vasily Aksenov’s books “Catapult” (1964) and “Halfway to the Moon” (1966) were published. In 1965, the play “Always on Sale” was written, which was staged on the stage of Sovremennik the same year. In 1968, the story of the satirical-fantasy genre “Overstocked Barrel” was published. In the sixties of the twentieth century, the works of Vasily Aksenov were published quite often in the magazine “Youth”. The writer worked on the editorial board of this publication for several years.

Seventies

In 1970, the first part of the adventure duology for children, “My Grandfather is a Monument,” was published, and in 1972, the second part, “The Chest in which Something Knocks,” was published. In 1971, the story “Love of Electricity” (about Leonid Krasin), written in the historical and biographical genre, was published. A year later in the magazine " New world"an experimental work was published with the title "Search for a Genre." In 1972, the novel “Gene Greene - Untouchable” was also created, which is a parody of an action film about spies. Vasily Aksenov worked on it together with Grigory Pozhenyan and Oleg Gorchakov. The work was published under the authorship of Grivadiy Gorpozhaks (a pseudonym from a combination of the surnames and names of three writers). In 1976, the writer translated from in English novel "Ragtime" by Edgar Lawrence Doctorow.

Social activity

The biography of Vasily Aksenov is filled with difficulties and hardships. In March 1966, while participating in an attempted demonstration against the intended rehabilitation of Stalin in Moscow, on Red Square, the writer was detained by vigilantes. Over the next two years, Aksenov put his signature on a number of letters sent in defense of dissidents, and was reprimanded for this by the Moscow branch of the Union of Writers of the USSR and included in the file.

Nikita Khrushchev, at a meeting with the intelligentsia back in 1963, sharply criticized Vasily Aksenov and Andrei Voznesensky. When the “thaw” ended, the writer’s works were no longer published in his homeland. In 1975, the novel “The Burn,” which we have already mentioned, was written. Vasily Aksenov did not even hope for its publication. "Island of Crimea" - a novel in fantasy genre- was also initially created by the author without the expectation that the work would be published and seen by the world. At this time (1979), criticism towards the writer became more and more acute, epithets such as “anti-people” and “non-Soviet” began to creep into it. But in 1977-1978, Aksenov’s works began to appear abroad, mainly in the United States of America.

Together with Iskander Fazil, Bella Akhmadulina, Andrey Bitov and Evgeny Popov, Vasily Aksenov became the co-author and organizer of the Metropol almanac in 1978. It never made it into the Soviet censored press, but it was published in the USA. After this, all participants in the almanac underwent “workouts.” This was followed by the expulsion of Erofeev and Popov from the Union of Writers of the USSR, and as a sign of protest, Vasily Aksenov, together with Semyon Lipkin and Inna Lisnyanskaya, also announced their withdrawal from the joint venture.

Life in the USA

At the invitation, in the summer of 1980, the writer went to the United States, and in 1981, for this, his USSR citizenship was taken away. Aksenov lived in the USA until 2004. During his stay there, he worked as a professor of Russian literature at various American universities: the Kennan Institute (from 1981 to 1982), the University of Washington (from 1982 to 1983), Goucher College (from 1983). to 1988), Mason University (from 1988 to 2009). As a journalist from 1980 to 1991. Aksenov Vasily collaborated with radio stations Radio Liberty, Voice of America, the almanac "Glagol" and the magazine "Continent". The writer’s radio essays were published in the collection “A Decade of Slander,” published in 2004.

In the United States, works written but not published in Russia were published: “The Burn”, “Our Golden Iron”, “The Island of Crimea”, and the collection “The Right to the Island”. However, Vasily Aksenov continued to create in America: “The Moscow Saga” (trilogy, 1989, 1991, 1993), “The Negative of a Positive Hero” (collection of stories, 1995), “The New Sweet Style” (novel, dedicated to life Soviet emigrants in the USA, 1996) - all this was written while living in the United States. The writer created works not only in Russian; in 1989, the novel “Egg Yolk” was written in English (however, it was later translated by the author himself). At the invitation of Jack Matlock, the American ambassador, Aksenov came to the Soviet Union for the first time after going abroad (nine years later). In 1990, the writer was returned to Soviet citizenship.

Work in Russia

In 1993, during the dispersal of the Supreme Soviet, Vasily Aksenov again openly showed his convictions and expressed solidarity with the people who signed a letter in support of Yeltsin. In 2004, Anton Barshchevsky filmed the Moscow Saga trilogy in Russia. In the same year, the writer’s work “The Voltairians and Voltairians” was published in the magazine “October”, which was subsequently awarded. In 2005, Aksenov wrote in the form personal diary a book of memoirs called “The Apple of the Eye.”

last years of life

In his last years, the writer and his family lived either in France, in the city of Biarritz, or in Moscow. In the Russian capital, on January 15, 2008, Aksenov felt unwell and was hospitalized in the writer. The writer was diagnosed with a stroke. A day later, Vasily Pavlovich was transferred to the Sklifosovsky Research Institute, and he underwent surgery to remove a blood clot in the carotid artery. For a long time, the writer’s condition remained quite serious. And in March 2009, new complications appeared. Aksenov was transferred to the Burdenko Institute and operated on again. Then Vasily Pavlovich was again hospitalized in It was there that the writer died on July 6, 2009. Vasily Pavlovich was buried in Moscow, on Vagankovskoe cemetery. In November 2009, in Kazan, in the house where the writer once lived, a Museum of his work was organized.

Vasily Aksenov: “Mysterious passion. A novel about the sixties"

This is the last completed work of the talented writer. It was published in full after Aksenov’s death, in October 2009. Previously, in 2008, they published individual chapters in the publication “Caravan of Stories Collection”. The novel is autobiographical, its heroes are the idols of art and literature of the sixties of the twentieth century: Evgeny Yevtushenko, Bulat Okudzhava, Andrei Voznesensky, Ernst Neizvestny, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Bella Akhmadulina, Marlen Khutsiev, Vladimir Vysotsky, Andrei Tarkovsky and others. Aksenov assigned fictitious names to the characters so that the work would not be associated with the memoir genre.

Prizes, awards, memory

In the United States of America the writer was awarded a doctorate. humanities. He was also a member of the American Authors League and PEN Club. In 2004, Aksenov was awarded the Russian Booker Prize for his work “The Voltairians and the Voltairians.” A year later he was awarded the honorary Order of Arts and Letters. The writer was a member Russian Academy arts

Every year since 2007, a literary and musical festival has been held in Kazan. international festival called "Aksenov-fest". For the first time it was held with the personal participation of Vasily Pavlovich. In 2009 it was opened Literary House Museum famous writer, it also now houses a literary city club. In 2010, the autobiographical unfinished novel of the writer “Lend-Lease” was published. Its presentation took place on November 7 at the Vasily Aksenov House-Museum.

In 2011, Evgeny Popov and Alexander Kabakov jointly published a book of memoirs about Vasily Pavlovich, which was called “Aksenov”. In it they examine the writer's fate, the intricacies of biography, and the process of the birth of a great Personality. The main task and idea of ​​the book is to prevent the distortion of facts in favor of certain events.

Family

Vasily Aksenov's maternal brother, Alexey, died during the siege of Leningrad. Paternal sister, Maya, is a teacher-methodologist, author of many teaching aids In Russian. The writer’s first wife was Kira Mendeleva, and Aksenov’s son Alexei was born to her in 1960. Now he works as a production designer. The second wife and widow of the writer, Maya Aksenova (born in 1930), is a specialist in foreign trade by education. While the family lived in the United States, she taught Russian and worked at the Chamber of Commerce in Russia. Vasily Pavlovich and Maya Afanasyevna did not have children together, but Aksenov had a stepdaughter, Elena (born in 1954). She died in August 2008.