Boris Zaitsev writer family life. Last years of life and death

Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev

Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich (1881/1972) - Russian emigrant writer. His prose traces the theme of the cosmic unity of nature and man (“Agrafena”, “Blue Star”). In addition, his work reflected the intelligentsia's search for its place during the Russian Revolution of 1905/1907. (novel “The Far Edge”). He also wrote a book of memoirs “Moscow”, the so-called “life portraits”, for example, “ Venerable Sergius Radonezh", and biographies of Russian writers.

Guryeva T.N. New literary dictionary/ T.N. Guryev. – Rostov n/d, Phoenix, 2009, p. 101.

Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich (01/29/1881-01/28/1972), writer, essayist, memoirist, translator. Born in Oryol into a noble family, he spent his childhood on his parents' estate - p. Mouth of Zhizdrinsky district Kaluga province. Having graduated from the Kaluga Real School in 1898, he studied at the Imperial Technical School in Moscow, the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg, and at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, but without finishing it, he devoted himself entirely to literary activity. Zaitsev's first stories were published by L. Andreev in 1901 in the Moscow newspaper "Courier". In the 1900s, Zaitsev plunged into literary life Moscow and St. Petersburg, published in a variety of publications, participates in meetings of the Teleshov circle “Sreda”, Moscow literary and artistic circle, “Tower” Vyach. Ivanova in St. Petersburg and became close to many contemporary writers (I. Bunin, L. Andreev, P. Muratov, etc.). In 1906, together with G. Glagol, P. Yartsev, Ellis founded literary group"Dawns", which published a magazine of the same name. In 1906, the St. Petersburg publishing house “Rosehovnik” published Zaitsev’s first book, “Stories,” designed by M. Dobuzhinsky, which brought the author resounding success. Before the revolution, 5 more stories by Zaitsev and the novel “The Far Land” (1912) were published.

Critics called the main features of Zaitsev’s prose “trust in life and justification for it,” “enlightened optimism.” “This is not a Chekhovian conviction-faith that life will become beautiful in 1000 years, but recognition of the goodness of the very fundamental principle of life - acceptance of it even in its present manifestation,” noted E. A. Koltonovskaya. In the literature of the Silver Age, Zaitsev's books stand out for their special quietness and tranquility. Enlightened and harmonious, Zaitsev’s creativity is directed towards the heavenly world; his lyrical heroes- “travelers” and “wanderers” in life - feel the inseparability, integrity of nature and man, their merging in a single Cosmos. On spiritual development Zaitsev was greatly influenced by V. Solovyov, who “pierced the pantheistic garment of youth and gave an impetus to faith” (“About Myself”).

From the first impressionistic “stories-poems” Zaitsev gradually moves to plot works, written in the “Turgenev-Chekhov” manner. The interaction of realistic and modernist traditions of Russian literature determines Zaitsev’s unique style, distinguished by its special transparency, watercolor colors, and heartfelt lyricism. The rhythmic and sound organization of speech gives Zaitsev's prose a picturesque musicality.

Since 1904, Zaitsev often visited Italy, which became his second spiritual homeland, and created a series of essays included in the book “Italy” (1918). Zaitsev translated Dante's Inferno into rhythmic prose (published only in 1961 in Paris).

The first period of Zaitsev’s work ends with the story “Blue Star” (1918), which was spawned by “Moscow is peaceful and calm, post-Chekhov, artistic and partly bohemian, Moscow of friends of poetry and Italy - future Orthodox” (“About Myself”). In light sadness, the fate of heroes (partly reminiscent of Dostoevsky’s characters), pictures of literary and theatrical life there is a premonition of the collapse of this fragile world.

In the historical catastrophe that befell Russia, Zaitsev kept the honor of a Russian writer, officer, and intellectual unsullied. The First World War found Zaitsev on the Pritykino estate in Kashirsky district. Tula lips. This is “a great test sent to people because they have sinned a lot and “forgot God,” he writes to G.I. Chulkov. -...Everyone, without exception, is responsible for this war. I am also responsible. This is also a reminder to me of an unrighteous life.” After graduating from the Alexander Military School in March 1917, Zaitsev was promoted to officer, but he did not have the chance to participate in battles: having fallen ill with lobar pneumonia, he received leave and shortly before October. 1917 leaves for Pritykino. 1917-22 were the most difficult years for the Zaitsev family. On the first day of the February Revolution, his nephew was killed, in 1919 his father died, and soon the son of Zaitsev’s wife from his first marriage, A. Smirnov, was arrested and executed. Zaitsev collaborates with the Book Publishing House of Writers in Moscow, and in 1921 he was elected chairman of the All-Russian Writers Union; As a member of the Famine Relief Committee, he was arrested and spent several days in Lubyanka.

The suffering and upheaval of the revolutionary years lead Zaitsev to the conscious acceptance of the Orthodox faith and to the Church, of which he remains a faithful child until the end of his days. From that time on, in his work, in my own words writer, “chaos, blood and ugliness” will be opposed by “the harmony and light of the Gospel, the Church” (“About Myself”). The author’s Orthodox worldview was already reflected in the stories of 1918-21 (“Soul”, “ White light", "Solitude"), where Zaitsev, regarding the revolution as a natural retribution for "promiscuity, carelessness... and lack of faith," does not fall into embitterment or hatred, but calls on the contemporary intellectual to repentance, love, meekness and mercy. The story "St. Nicholas" - a figurative chronicle of the historical life of Russia at the beginning of the century, rare in accuracy and depth of understanding of events; the gentle old charioteer Mikolka (isn’t it Nikolai the Wonderworker himself?), calmly driving his horse along the Arbat, being baptized in the church, will take the country, as the author believes, out of the most difficult historical trials. The main motive running through creativity is the motive of humility, understood in the Christian sense as the courageous acceptance of everything sent by God.

In 1922, Zaitsev and his family went abroad for treatment to Berlin, and from 1924 lived in Paris, where he spent more than half a century of emigrant creativity. Zaitsev is published in almost all publications of the Russian Diaspora, organizes literary evenings and meetings, maintains friendly relations with I. Bunin, A. Remizov, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, A. Kuprin, I. Shmelev, M. Osorgin and others. The famous theologian, Archimandrite, became the confessor of the Zaitsev family. Cyprian (Kern). In 1928, Zaitsev took part in the first congress of writers of Russian diaspora in Belgrade, by decree of King Alexander of Yugoslavia awarded the order St. Savva Serbsky. From 1947 until the end of his life, Zaitsev served as chairman of the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists and headed the literary department of the newspaper “Russian Thought”.

In 1925, Zaitsev’s novel “The Golden Pattern” was published. The carefree, morally broken life of the educated strata of pre-revolutionary Russia is replaced by a terrible situation of executions, deprivation, and terror. Zaitsev discovers the origins of the national tragedy and the forces that are able to resist it. This novel is both a trial of the revolution and a repentance. The heroes form a “union of people” doing deeds of love and humbly bearing the cross of trials.

The image of Russia as tragic, “tormenting and tormented”, was also recreated in the “tales of deaths” of the 1920s: “Strange Journey” (1926), “Avdotya-Death” (1927), “Anna” (1929). In Zaitsev’s work they are unique in their dark coloring, harsh writing, and abundance of scary and cruel scenes. But their tragedy is not hopeless: in the dark, under the roar of a blizzard that has descended on Russia, a fragile girl prays “for everyone” in her room, whose humble inflexibility is the rock on which Russia is established (“Avdotya-death”).

Thanks to the suffering and upheavals of the revolution, as Zaitsev himself wrote, he discovered a previously unknown continent - “Russia of Holy Rus'”. In exile, far from his homeland, the theme of Holy Rus' becomes the main one in the artist’s work. In 1925, Zaitsev’s book “Reverend Sergius of Radonezh” was published - a biography of the most revered Russian saint. The monastic feat of Sergius, who revived the spiritual power of Rus' during the years of the Horde yoke, served as a reminder that now, when Russia finds itself under a new, more terrible yoke, spiritual, creative work is necessary first of all. At the same time, Zaitsev avoided politicizing the appearance of the saint. Dr. An important task of the book was to show the character of Russian Orthodox spirituality. To the established idea that everything Russian is “grimace, hysteria and foolishness, Dostoevschina,” Zaitsev contrasted the spiritual sobriety of Sergius - an example of “clarity, transparent and even light,” beloved by the Russian people themselves.

“Russia of Holy Rus'” is recreated by Zaitsev in many essays and notes of the 20-60s - about Optina Pustyn and its elders, about Saints Seraphim of Sarov, John of Kronstadt, Patriarch Tikhon, church leaders of the Russian emigration, the Theological Institute and Sergius's Metochion in Paris, Russians monasteries in France. Many of them are permeated with a feeling of late repentance and bitterness, such as, for example, the essay about St. Seraphim of Sarov, whom the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia considered too “common,” laughed at his canonization in 1903 and only now, far from his homeland, did she discover this greatest saint.

In May 1927, inspired by the stories of the poet Prince. D. Shakhovsky, who became a monk, Zaitsev made a pilgrimage to the center of universal Orthodoxy - to Holy Mount Athos, and in 1935, together with his wife, visited the Valaam Monastery, which then belonged to Finland. The result of these trips were the books of essays “Athos” (1928) and “Valaam” (1936), which became best descriptions of these holy places in the literature of the 20th century. Zaitsev considered the pilgrimage to Mount Athos the most important event in his biography. On the Holy Mountain he lived an intense religious life, prayed a lot, talked with the elders and returned from there, according to his wife, “renewed and bright from the inside” (“Another Faith”). However, in his book there are no discussions about purely theological and church subjects; the author’s goal is different: “I am trying to give a feeling of Athos; how I saw it, heard it, inhaled it...” The writer, without offering the reader a sermon, introduces him into the world of the Church through a secular - “aesthetic” path, and this “super task” of the book “is deeply hidden under the outwardly bright, as if purely secular description" Zaitsev gives the reader the opportunity to feel the world of Orthodox monasticism, to experience moments of quiet contemplation with the author. Pictures of the unique oasis of Russian spirituality, images of friendly monks and prayer-book elders are imbued with a poignant feeling of homeland. Zaitsev understood his mission as a Russian writer who found himself in exile as introducing both his compatriots and the Western world to the shrines of Orthodoxy, as “infiltration into Europe and into the world, a kind of grafting into the West of a miraculous “eye” from the tree of Russia...” (“Answer to Müller”) . In his books, however, there is no teaching. The author's method is not to prove the truth of Orthodoxy, but to show its appearance, awaken interest in it, and carefully dispel prejudices. Offer the Truth - and bow before its radiance.

The novel “House in Passy” (1935) recreates the life of the Russian emigration in France. The dramatic fates of Russian exiles, people from different walks of life, are united by the motif of “enlightening suffering.” The central character of the novel is the monk Melchizedek, who labors in the world. He embodies the Orthodox view of the world, of current events, of the problem of evil and suffering: “ Last secrets God's justice, evil, and the fate of the world are closed to us. Let’s just say this: we love God and believe that He will not do anything bad.”

Over the course of 20 years, Zaitsev created an autobiographical tetralogy “Gleb’s Journey”, consisting of the books “Dawn”, “Silence”, “Youth” and “The Tree of Life” (1934-53), covering the period from the 1880s to the 1930s. The author himself defined its genre as a “novel-chronicle-poem” and said that the main thing actor in it is Russia, “its life at that time, its structure, people, landscapes, its immensity...” (“About Myself”). All the characters in the chronicle, which ranks with “The Life of Arsenyev” by I. Bunin, “The Summer of the Lord” by I. Shmelev, and “The Childhood of Nikita” by A. Tolstoy, have real prototypes. “In comprehending the image of Gleb, Zaitsev emphasized in him... features characteristic of the entire generation as a whole... The contemplative, passive and partly sacrificial character of the hero corresponds to the appearance of his heavenly patron - St. Gleb (along with St. Boris), the first Russian martyr saint, who bequeathed to Russia his “image of meekness”” (Voropaeva E.V. Life and Work of Boris Zaitsev).

Zaitsev is also known as a thoughtful critic and literary scholar. His essays and memoirs about figures of Russian culture (including Blok, Bely, Balmont, Vyach. Ivanov, Berdyaev, Al. Benois, Muratov, Mochulsky, Bunin, Shmelev, Tsvetaeva, Remizov, Merezhkovsky, A. Tolstoy, etc.), collected in the books “Moscow”, “Distant”, “Brother Writers”, remain unsurpassed in calm objectivity and depth of comprehension of the spiritual essence of man. Fulfilling the Christian commandment of non-judgment of one's neighbor, Zaitsev at the same time clearly distinguishes between good and evil. The life of the heart and soul of Russian classics was carefully recreated by Zaitsev in his fictionalized biographies “The Life of Turgenev” (1932), “Zhukovsky” (1951), “Chekhov” (1954).

A. M. Lyubomudrov

Materials from the site Great Encyclopedia of the Russian People were used.

Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich (1881 - 1972), prose writer. Born on January 29 (February 10 n.s.) in Orel in the family of a mining engineer. His childhood years were spent in the village of Usty, Kaluga province, “in an atmosphere of freedom and the kindest attitude towards oneself from the parents.” From that time on, he experiences the “witchcraft power” that he joyfully experiences all his life - the power of the book.

In Kaluga he graduated from a classical gymnasium and a real school. In 1898, “not without the encouragement of his beloved father,” he passed exams at the Imperial Technical School. He studies for only a year: he is expelled for participating in student unrest. He goes to St. Petersburg, enters the Mining Institute, but soon leaves it, returns to Moscow and, having successfully passed the exams again, becomes a student at the university's Faculty of Law, but after studying for three years, he leaves the university. Passion for literature becomes a lifelong pursuit.

Your first literary experiments Zaitsev submits to the court of the patriarch of criticism and journalism N. Mikhailovsky, editor of the populism magazine “Russian Wealth”, and receives his favorable parting words. In 1900 he met Chekhov in Yalta, a reverent attitude towards whom he retained throughout his life. Chekhov noted talent young writer. Leonid Andreev published in "Courier" Zaitsev's story "On the Road", which announced; about the birth of an original prose writer. In 1902 he became a member of the Moscow literary circle "Sreda", which united N. Teleshov, V. Veresaev, I. Bunin, L. Andreev, M. Gorky and others.

The first successful publications open the way for Zaitsev to any magazines. People started talking about him, the first reviews and essays on his work appeared. The main advantage of his stories, novels, plays was the joy of life, the bright optimistic beginning of his worldview.

In 1906, his acquaintance with Bunin turned into a close friendship that would last until last days their lives, although at times they quarreled, however, they made up very quickly.

In Moscow in 1912, the cooperative “Book Publishing House of Writers” was formed, which included Bunin and Zaitsev, Teleshov and Shmelev, etc.; here in the collections "Word" Zaitsev publishes the following significant works, like “Blue Star”, “Mother and Katya”, “Travelers”. Here the publication of his first collected works in seven volumes begins.

In 1912 he marries and his daughter Natasha is born. Among these events in his personal life, he completes work on the novel "The Far Edge" and begins translating " Divine Comedy"Dante.

Zaitsev lives and works for a long time in his father’s house in Pritykino Tula province. Here he receives news of the beginning of the First World War and a summons for mobilization. The thirty-five-year-old writer in 1916 became a cadet at a military school in Moscow, and in 1917 - a reserve officer in an infantry regiment. He didn’t have to fight - the revolution began. Zaitsev is trying to find a place for himself in this collapsing world, which comes with great difficulty, outrages many people, and turns out to be unacceptable.

Participates in the work of the Moscow Educational Commission. Further, joyful events (book publications) give way to tragic ones: the wife’s son (from his first marriage) was arrested and shot, his father dies. In 1921 he was elected chairman of the Writers' Union, in the same year cultural figures joined the famine relief committee, and a month later they were arrested and taken to the Lubyanka. Zaitsev was released a few days later, he left for Pritykino and returned to Moscow in the spring of 1922, where he fell ill with typhus. After recovery, he decides to go abroad with his family to improve his health. Thanks to Lunacharsky's assistance, he receives a visa and leaves Russia. At first he lives in Berlin, works a lot, then in 1924 he comes to Paris, meets Bunin, Kuprin, Merezhkovsky and remains forever in the capital of the emigrants abroad. Zaitsev worked actively until the end of his days, wrote and published a lot. He carries out his long-planned plans - he writes artistic biographies of people dear to him, writers: “The Life of Turgenev” (1932), “Zhukovsky” (1951), “Chekhov” (1954).

In 1964 he wrote his last story, “The River of Times,” which will give the title to his last book.

On January 21, 1972, at the age of 91, Zaitsev died in Paris. He was buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery.

Materials used from the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.

Read further:

Nadezhda BABENKO . Genre features of confession in the story “Sin” by B.K. Zaitsev. 22.09.2011

Essays:

Collection cit.: In 7 vols. M., 1916-19; Collection Op.: In 6 vols. Berlin; M.; Pg., 1922-23; Works: In 3 vols. M., 1933; Collection cit.: In 8 vols. M., 1999-2000; Wanderer (Cycle of essays). St. Petersburg, 1994; Days (Cycle of essays). M., 1995; Sign of the Cross. Novel. Essays. Journalism. M., 2000; B.K. Zaitsev about Russians and Soviet writers/ Publ. L. N. Nazarova // Russian literature. 1989. No. 1.

Literature:

Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev. Bibliography / Comp. R. Guerra. Paris, 1982; Koltonovskaya E. A. Boris Zaitsev // Russian literature of the 20th century: 1890-1910. T. 3. Book. 8. M., 1916; Romanenko A. The earthly wanderings of Boris Zaitsev // Zaitsev B.K. Blue Star. M., 1989; Prokopov T. F. Intro. article // Zaitsev B.K. Autumn light. M., 1990; Voropaeva E. V. Life and work of Boris Zaitsev // Zaitsev B. K. Works: In 3 volumes. T. 1. M., 1993; Lyubomudrov A. M. Monastic pilgrimages of Boris Zaitsev // Russian literature. No. 1. 1995; Dunaev M. M. Orthodoxy and Russian literature. Part 6. M., 2001; Entry articles to vol. 1-8 collections op.; Problems of studying the life and work of B.K. Zaitsev. [Vol. 1]. Kaluga, 1998; [Vol. 2]. Kaluga, 2000; In search of harmony (About the work of B.K. Zaitsev). Orel, 1998; Zaitseva-Sollogub N.B. I remember. M., 1998.

Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich is a famous Russian writer. He was born in the city of Orel and was a nobleman by birth. Born in the era of revolution, and having endured many sufferings and shocks that fate had in store for him, the writer consciously decides to accept the Orthodox faith and the Church, and will remain faithful to it until the end of his life. He tries not to write about the time in which he lived in his youth, and which passed in chaos, blood and ugliness, contrasting him with harmony, the Church and the light of the Holy Gospel. The author reflected the worldview of Orthodoxy in his stories “Soul”, “Solitude”, “White Light”, written in 1918-1921, where the author regards the revolution as a pattern for carelessness, lack of faith and licentiousness.

Considering all these events and life's troubles, Zaitsev does not become embittered and does not harbor hatred, he peacefully calls on the modern intelligentsia to love, repentance and mercy. The story "St. Nicholas Street", which describes historical life Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century is characterized by the accuracy and depth of the events taking place, where the quiet driver, the old man Mikolka, calmly drives his horse along the Arbat, is baptized at the church, and, as the author believes, takes the whole country out of the trials that history has prepared for it. The prototype of the old charioteer may be Nicholas the Wonderworker himself, an image imbued with patience and deep faith.

The motive that permeates all the author’s work is humility, perceived precisely in Christendom, as accepting everything that God sends with courage and inexhaustible faith. Thanks to the suffering that the revolution brought, as Boris Konstantinovich himself wrote: “He discovered a previously unknown land - “Russia of Holy Rus'.”

Next, joyful events are coming - the publication of books, but they are replaced tragic events: his wife's son from her first marriage is arrested and killed, father's funeral.In 1921 he headed the Writers' Union, in the same year he joined the famine relief committee, and a month later they were arrested. Zaitsev was released a few days later, and he went to his home in Pritykino, and then returned back to Moscow in the spring of 1922, where he fell ill with typhus. Having recovered from his illness, he decides to go abroad in order to improve his health a little. Thanks to Lunacharsky’s patronage, he manages to obtain the right to leave, and he immediately leaves Russia. At first, the writer lives in Germany, where he works fruitfully, and in 1924 he returns to France, to Paris, where he works with Bunin, Merezhkovsky Kuprin, and remains forever in the “capital of emigrants.”

Living in exile, far from native land, in the work of the “artist” of the word, the theme of the holiness of Russia is the main one.In 1925, the book “Reverend Sergius of Radonezh” was published, which describes the feat of the monk Sergius, who restored the spiritual strength of Holy Rus' during the years of the yoke of the Golden Horde. This book gave strength to Russian emigrants and inspired their creative struggle. She revealed the spirituality of the Russian character and the Orthodox Church. He set the spiritual sobriety of monk Sergei, as exemplified by the clarity, the invisible light emanating from him and the inexhaustible love of the entire Russian people, in contrast to the established ideas that everything Russian is “grimacism, foolishness and the hysteria of Dostoevschina.” Zaitsev showed in Sergei the sobriety of the soul, as the manifestation of someone who is loved by all the Russian people.

“More than six centuries now separate us from the time when our great compatriot passed away from earthly life. There is some secret in the fact that such spiritual lights appear in the most difficult times forThe Fatherland and the people are at a time when their support is especially needed...."

In 1929-1932, the Parisian newspaper “Vozrozhdenie” published a series of essays and articles by Zaitsev entitled “A Writer’s Diary” - a response to current events in cultural, social and religious life Russian abroad. Zaitsev wrote about the literary process in emigration and the metropolis, about philosophers and scientists, about theatrical premieres and exhibitions in Paris, about the church and monasticism, about Russian holiness and the encyclicals of the Pope, about the situation in Soviet Russia, about the kidnapping of General Kutepov, about scandalous revelations French writer, who allegedly visited Mount Athos... “A Writer’s Diary”, combining memoirs and historical and cultural essays,literary critical articles, reviews, theater criticism, journalistic notes, portraitssketches, published in full for the first time in thisbook.

"We are a drop of Russia..."- wrote Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev, an outstanding writer of Russian diaspora, neorealist, and until the last defended the ideals of Russianspirituality. And the story "Blue Star" is about the love of a hero who accepted the idea " eternal femininity“, a sign of the literary, artistic and intellectual life of Moscow; and the love novel “The Golden Pattern”, imbued with the light of the joy of being, telling about the fate of a Russian woman who finds herself at the junction of a breaking time and cultivating a “carnal man” in herself, forgetting about the “spiritual”, and sometimes even about a “spiritual person”; and the novel “House in Passy” - about the fate of the Russian intelligentsia in emigration; and the book of memoirs “Moscow” - they recreate bright image the pre-revolutionary era with its ideological ferment and richness of spiritual life.

In the novel "The House in Passy", written in 1935, the life of Russians was accurately recreatedmigrants in France, where dramatic destinies Russi exiles, coming from various strata of society, are united by a single motive of “enlightening suffering.” The main character of the novel “The House in Passy” is the monk Melchizedek, who is the embodiment Orthodox views on what is happening in the world, on specific events around, problems that bring evil and a lot of suffering to people.

“Russia of Holy Rus'” - Zaitsev wrote this work based on many essays and notes written about the Optina Desert, about the elders, about Saints John of Kronstadt, Seraphim of Sarov, Patriarch Tikhon and other church figures who were in exile, about the Theological Institute and Russian monasteries in France.

In the spring of 1927, Boris Konstantinovich climbed Holy Mount Athos, and in 1935, with his wife, he visited the Valaam Monastery, which then belonged to Finland. These trips were the prerequisite for the appearance of the book of essays “Athos” (1928) and “Valaam” (1936), which later became the best descriptions of these holy places in all literature of the 20th century.

“I spent seventeen unforgettable days on Mount Athos. Living in monasteries, wandering around the peninsula on a mule, on foot, sailing along its shores in a boat, reading books about it, I tried to absorb everything I could. Scientific, philosophical or theological in my writing no. I was on Mount Athos Orthodox person and a Russian artist. But only."

B. K. Zaitsev

The writer Zaitsev gives readers the opportunity to experience the world of Orthodox monasticism, to experience quiet moments of contemplation with the author himself. The creations of the unique temple of Russian spirituality, the described images of friendly monks and elders - prayer books, are imbued with a poignant feeling of patriotism for the homeland.

Until the last days of his life, he worked fruitfully, published a lot and successfully collaborated with many publishing houses. He writes artistic biographies (long-planned) of people close and dear to him, and writers: “The Life of Turgenev” (1932), “Chekhov” (1954), “Zhukovsky” (1951). In 1964 he published his last story“The River of Times,” which later gave the name to the last book.

At the age of 91, Zaitsev B.K. died in Paris on January 21, 1972. He was buried in the Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery in France.

After seven decades of oblivion, the name and books of Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev are returning to our culture - outstanding master lyrical prose, who found himself among thousands of Russian exiles in 1922. His creative legacy is enormous.

Zaitsev, Boris Konstantinovich

Contemporary emigrant writer. Born in the city of Orel, in noble family. He spent his childhood partly at the mining factories where his father served, partly on his father’s estate near Kaluga, “in constant communication with nature,” in “an atmosphere of freedom and the kindest attitude towards oneself from the parents.” Governesses, hunting, provincial technical intelligentsia in factories with slowly developing production, bankrupt nobles, owners of large but empty and abandoned estates, strong farms of single kulaks, empty fields of the middle peasant masses, leaving almost all year round into waste industries, and finally provincial Kaluga with a constant 50 thousand population for 60 years - this is the situation in the atmosphere in which it grew and developed future writer and the region left an indelible mark on his work. Until the age of eleven, Z. lived at home, then he entered the Kaluga real school, and in 1898 - the Moscow Technical Institute. In 1899 Z. was dismissed from the institute for participating in student unrest. In 1902 Z. passed exams in ancient languages. and enters the university at the Faculty of Law, but does not graduate, goes to Italy, being carried away by art and antiquities there. At the age of seventeen, Z. began his literary experiments. In 1901, his first story, “On the Road,” was published in “Courier.” In 1904-1906 he worked as a proofreader at the Moscow Marxist magazine "Pravda", where he published two stories - "Mist" and "Dream"; the third - "Quiet Dawns" - was no longer accepted and ended up in the "New Path", a monthly with a mystical slant.

The first volume of Z.'s stories appeared in 1903. It vividly reflected the psyche of an intellectual nobleman from the outback, an attentive observer of the fading life of noble estates, sharing his leisure time noble estates, surrounded by a threatening mass of dark diggers, and in the city - by bestial bourgeois satiety. The author depicts the latter with energetic, sharp, even rough strokes, bringing living people closer and merging with animals and inanimate objects. Wolves feel and think like humans; people are likened to moss-covered stumps, mushrooms, and sacks; Their hairy bodies, filled with food, heat up like ovens, they sniffle animalistically, growl shamelessly in sultry caresses. They are opposed by sketches of bar intellectuals with their cloyingly effeminate love, with feigned detachment from this world, selfless and sadly exhausted by the consciousness of their doom and the futility of inescapable earthly desires. Z.'s pictures of nature are subordinated to this class-biased assessment. All real world, alive and dead, full of malice and enmity. The poet wants to depict the face of eternal night, with roughly carved, huge eyes made as if from stone, in which he would read “calm, majestic and indifferent despair.” And next to it are sweet landscapes in which “dogs and sheep are wise in human terms,” birch trees are “jubilant chorales of brides,” and against their background they equally delight the tender eye of the poet and the mighty sixty-year-old priest - the owner of one hundred dessiatines, and the constable withered from old age, talking sadly with liberal landowners, and a bunny running out of the green clover at a cheerful gallop into the warm dawn. The apparent cheerfulness of these sun-drenched landscapes is reminiscent of savoring the sunspots on the gilded lid of a coffin.

Class limitations of perception set a limit to extraordinary talent. Despite the classical completeness of individual pages and passages, Zaitsev did not and could not, either ideologically or emotionally, capture the reader even from his class. Hence the sad feeling of isolation and alienation, which left the imprint of internal emigrantism on the author’s worldview. Remaining “outside the parties”, “outside the class struggle”, with all his mystical universal aspiration, Z. does not go beyond the horizons of a nobleman, about whom the author himself correctly said: “he was neither a socialist, nor an anarchist, nor a Christian and only longed to be something" while staying with the landowners. The hero of the story "Tomorrow", Misha, is present at the rally. Here, by the light of torches, he takes part in a brotherly oath under bowed banners to die bravely and perish with those who love freedom more than life. But Misha doesn’t care where to go, why to go, he doesn’t give himself an idea of ​​what exactly people are fighting for. “Anyway, it’s not he who walks, but It—It thinks, a gigantic red-hot It.” The living interests of the masses are obscured from Zaitsev’s man by a heap of excited words, from which he becomes moved: “You, great spirit, you knead, ferment, seethe and explode, you shake the earth and destroy cities, destroy authorities, oppression, pain - I pray to you. Whatever tomorrow may be, I greet you, “Tomorrow.” This is how the October days of the fifth year were perceived by the lyricist of the manorial estates. The renegade is happy to dissolve in a gigantic group, in a beautiful theatrical setting, but the goals of the group are indifferent to him, he replaces them with enthusiastic phrases. It will pass frenzy, and in the face of real things a confused person will find himself, with a deep hostility to the coming, yesterday still welcomed “Tomorrow.” “The whole city is being poured with sulfuric acid from the sky, and we are smoking, we are beginning to smolder.” The heroes of Z. are characterized by a feeling of the death of their class, they call for perseverance and courage. “We have been given to live in melancholy and sorrow, but it is also given to be firm and with honor and courage to carry our spirit through this vale with an unquenchable flame and die with calm sadness: to depart to the eternal abode of clarity” (“Sister” ).

The outbreak of October awakened in Z. those active-reactionary tendencies that were inherent in its class nature. The unquenchable spirit of the landowner does not yet want to “die with calm sadness.”

In the story “St. Nicholas Street,” the revolution made itself felt to the author only in trucks crushing passers-by. Usually the meek Z. stings with malice: “or another one can crush him - light, graceful. In it, of course, the commissars - from military-shaven, brilliant commanders and strategists through comrades from mechanics to specialists from economic councils - these are bourgeois and deceased. But with everyone flying in common in their faces: how important! How great! And the radiance of glory and self-satisfaction illuminates the entire Arbat." But if Z. in 1905 opposed the Black Hundred pogroms with his meek “Let there be”, now, when the Reds have won and the workers have moved up from the basements, he no longer reconciles himself, but with the pathos of a “true Russian” man he instructs the Orthodox people who have their tail between their legs: “ Call on love and meekness, so immensely exiled, so desecrated. Listen to the ringing of the bells of the Arbat... but do not extinguish yourself and do not surrender to a petty life, petty money-grubbing, you, Russian citizen of the Arbat." A tender call for equality of suffering, Christian love and common standing before God under bell ringing- this is what the noble lyricist opposed to October.

In the story “Strange Journey,” which is a continuation of “The Blue Star,” the Christian, mournful, Pharisaic hostility towards the real, perishable world took shape in a condensed, albeit tired and passive, hostility towards everything Soviet. The poet reconciled himself with the now oppressed bourgeois well-being, but human soul he still remains suspicious of the peasant. In the story "Avdotya Death" the image of a peasant woman, hunted by need, beating her old mother because she "eats" a lot, is outlined with insidious and callous indifference. Z. is alien to pity and understanding, he does not have the key to people of a different class. "With them we need stronger nerves. They are all like this, but you think others are better. “They don’t feel the same as you,” the former landowner instructs her daughter, the only good people in a Soviet village. As if the exceptions are the story “Young” and the story “Agrafena”. But the “young” are not living people, but dolls acting out a love pantomime in a rustic style, and Agrafena is a servant who dutifully whiled away her life in a noble family. The whole story is written in the tones of the lives of the saints. But Z. treats people of his class with cautious tenderness, even when they are antipathetic to him. Thus, the pimp and pederast Nikodimov in “Blue Star” is depicted with sympathetic sadness for his doom and fatal end.

Perhaps the largest work of the last period is “The Golden Pattern,” a novel last chapters which was published in 1925. The work provides a colorful image of the fate of a noble intelligent family in the interweaving of estate, city and foreign acquaintances over the last quarter of a century. The heroes of this novel do not like work; its creative pathos is alien to them. The engineer, the director of the plant, in response to the admiration of his daughter’s friend at the iron symphony and the effective power of the plant, exclaims: “And damn them, all interesting factories. Labor, if you like, is the curse of man.”

Dislike for the city bureaucratic nobility, contempt for the radical raznochintsy, warm sympathy for the uneconomical village nobles with a mystical scent and a liberal touch, a rusty, frightened hostility towards the working gray masses, corroding the tender lyrics of Zaitsev’s stories, and finally the all-covering fear of death, the thirst for immortality and submissive doom fate - this is a closed and rather integral circle, beyond which the poet’s experiences and creativity do not go. A well-groomed sweet singer with warm spring words becomes cold, hard, and rude as a cow every time his pen touches ordinary people. The heroes he affectionately sketched cannot stomach either the lower working classes or even the working intelligentsia. “People in blouses and combed jackets didn’t irritate me... Well, what can we take from them, is it really surprising? No, of course there’s nothing to be surprised at. All this is Rus', calico Russia. But it’s also difficult to love them.” This is Z.’s meeting in Italy with an excursion of female students and teachers, who were annoyed by the fact that they were naively confused in architecture and dates before and after Christ. era. Tombs of the Appian Way, Roman antiquity, art galleries and ancient coins for Zaitsev’s bar are more significant and colorful than the real life and real struggle of the working masses. And here’s how our Soviet youth appears to these unfortunate blind people: “Gloomy, half-naked young men in regular columns carried posters with the inscription: “Death to traitors.” Soviet young ladies lazily wandered, lazily carrying above them: “Execution of criminals.” There were children’s detachments: “Slaughter the bourgeoisie.” " - today is a demonstration. And over my entire city, so beloved for a long time, there was heard, incessantly: "Death, death, death." This is not from a pamphlet, but from the diary of the heroine, whom the author portrays as bold, open and truthful, charmingly weaving the golden pattern of her life.

Z. is characterized by the hothouse sophistication of a narrowed and broken, almost sick perception, childishly peeking through world historical changes, as something of little value for eternity and for the sublime “real” life of puny degenerates of the provincial nobility. “There is more meaning in the fluttering of a lace curtain, in the tapping of heels on the stairs, than in a sea of ​​books, falls, conquests and victories.”

Characteristics of the language and composition of Z. - see Art."Impressionism" (Russian).

Bibliography: I. Sochin. B. Zaitseva, I, II, III vols., ed. "Rosehipnik", St. Petersburg, 1906-1911; Sochin., 6 vols., publishing house of writers in Moscow, M., 1916; Blue Star, Tale, Sat. "Slovo", 8, M., 1918. Abroad: Collection. works., 7 vols., Grzhebin publishing house, Berlin, 1922-1923; Travelers and other stories, the collection "Russian Land", Paris, 1921; Far Land, Novel, Slovo Publishing House, Berlin, 1922; Street St. Nicholas, Stories, Slovo Publishing House, Berlin, 1918-1921; Raphael, Don Juan, Charles V, Souls of Purgatory, Neva Publishing House, Berlin, 1924; Golden pattern, publishing house "Flame", Prague, 1926; Venerable Sergius of Radonezh, Paris, 1925; Study on the life of Alexei the Man of God, "Modern Notes", 1926, XXVI.

I. Russian literature of the 20th century, ed. S. A. Vengerova, book. VIII, pp. 65-66 (autobiography and article); Gornfeld A.G., Lyrics of space, collection. "Books and People", 1908, pp. 13-23; Morozov M., Old World Mystic, in the book. "Essays on History latest literature", St. Petersburg, or in the collection "Literary Decay", book II, 1909; Koltonovaya E., Poet for the few, collection " New life", St. Petersburg, 1910; Kogan P. S., Essays on the history of modern Russian literature, vol. III, issue I, M., 1910; Lavretsky A., B. Zaitsev, “Our Days”, 1915, No. 3 ; Lvov-Rogachevsky V., Newest Russian literature, M., 1927; Russian writers about modern literature and about myself, “In my own ways”, Prague, 1925-1926, X - XI; Balmont, Lightly ringing stem, Paris, "Last News" No. 2087, December 9, 1926; Osorgii M., Sketches about writers. B.K. Zaitsev, "New Russian Book", 1923, III - IV; Him, About Boris Zaitsev, "Last News", 1926, IX - XII; Smirnov N., Sun of the Dead, "Red New Year", 1924, II; Adamovich G., Literary conversations, "Link", Paris, 1926-1927, Nos. 168 and 210; Mochulsky K., "Link", Paris, 1926, No. 202; Kulman N., Revival, 1926, 12 - XII.

III. Vladislavlev I.V., Russian writers, Leningrad, 1924; Him, Literature of the Great Decade, vol. I, M., 1928.

M. Morozov.

(Lit. enc.)

Z A Yitsev, Boris Konstantinovich

Genus. 1881, d. 1972. Prose writer. Works: “Agrafena” (1908), “The Far Land” (novel, 1913), “Blue Star” (1918), “Reverend Sergius of Radonezh” (1925), “Moscow” (memoirs, 1939), etc. In 1922 emigrated.

Large biographical encyclopedia. 2009 .

See what “Zaitsev, Boris Konstantinovich” is in other dictionaries:

Talented writer. Born on January 29, 1881 in the city of Orel, into a noble family descended from a Tatar family with an admixture of Polish blood. Zaitsev spent his childhood on an estate near Kaluga, in an atmosphere of freedom and family affection. One of the main... ... Biographical Dictionary

- (1881 1972), Russian. writer. Since 1922 in exile. On the 125th anniversary of L.'s birth (1939), he wrote an article about his work. Analyzing the poems “Demon” and “Mtsyri”, Z. wrote that both of these poems “despite the obvious romantic youth of their plans remain on... ... Lermontov Encyclopedia

- (1881 1972) Russian writer. The feeling of the mystical unity of human and natural worlds in stories and tales marked by impressionism (Agrafena, 1908; Blue Star, 1918); in the novel The Far Land (1913) the intelligentsia’s search for... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Russian writer, white emigrant. He began publishing in 1901. Z.’s stories, included in the collection of 1906, the stories “Agrafena” (1908), “Blue Star” (1918), and others, were written in an impressionistic manner, preserved ... ... Big Soviet encyclopedia

- (1881 1972), Russian writer. The feeling of the mystical unity of the human and natural worlds in stories and tales marked by impressionism (“Agrafena”, 1908; “Blue Star”, 1918); in the novel “The Far Edge” (1913) the quest... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Boris Zaitsev - Far Land

Boris Zaitsev - House in Passy

Boris Zaitsev - Golden pattern

Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich (1881–1972), Russian prose writer, playwright. Emigrated in 1922. Born January 29 (February 10), 1881 in Orel.

He spent his childhood in Kaluga, where in 1898 Zaitsev graduated from a real school. For participating in student riots, he was expelled from the Moscow Technical School, where his father, plant director Yu.P. Guzhona, assigned him. He studied at the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg and at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University (did not graduate). He made his debut in 1901 with the story On the Road, and in 1906 Stories were published. Book 1, which brought the author fame. Zaitsev wrote about his creative development in 1916: “I started with naturalistic stories; by the time of publication in the press - the so-called craze. “impressionism”, then the lyrical and romantic element appears. Behind Lately one can feel a growing inclination towards realism.”

You, young Russia, are our main hope. It is joyful to see that there is a connection between those who come into life and those who leave it, a spiritual and cultural connection, this is the most important thing.

Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich

Specifics literary position Zaitsev was determined by his intermediate position between the participants of the literary association “Sreda”, firmly committed to the precepts of Russian realistic classics, and by a clear attraction to symbolism, which largely determined the problems of his first works and their construction in a form called by the author “plotless story-poem” . In Zaitsev's early collections (Stories. Book 2, 1909), the influence of K. Hamsun is noticeable. At the same time, already at initial stage creativity, the strong influence of Chekhov is noticeable, predetermining the choice of the hero: this is an intellectual who is always at odds with the surrounding prosaic world, has not given up dreams of a different, truly spiritualized form of existence and is capable, despite his painful everyday life, to strive for an unattainable high ideal. The presence of Chekhov is especially noticeable in Zaitsev’s dramaturgy, where the play The Lanins’ Estate (1914), which became the directorial debut of E.B. Vakhtangov, stands out.

In 1904, Zaitsev visited Italy for the first time, lived there for a long time in the years before the First World War and considered this country his second spiritual homeland. Italian impressions suggested the plots of several of his stories (the collection Raphael, 1922, which is accompanied by a series of essays on Italy, published since 1907) and continued to fuel his work until the end of the writer’s life.

Zaitsev more than once called his main work of the Russian period the story Blue Star (1918), which he regarded as “farewell to the past.” The story recreates the love story of the hero, a dreamer and seeker of the highest spiritual truth, for a girl who resembles Turgenev’s heroines. The background of this love is intellectual and artistic life the Moscow environment, which, in anticipation of approaching formidable historical events, is trying to find for itself strong moral supports and spiritual guidelines, but already feels that its entire established way of life is leaving and a period of severe upheavals lies ahead. This motif is also present in the collection of stories, sometimes close to prose poems, St. Street. Nicholas (1923), Zaitsev’s first book to be published after his exodus from Russia.

How many times has everyone written about moonlit nights, but here everything is fresh, rich, strong - and the general spirit is excellent - death, eternity, and spirituality: in a word (...) high poetry. (about Bunin's stories)

Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich

During the First World War, Zaitsev graduated from the Alexander Military School and immediately after February Revolution was promoted to officer, but did not go to the front and from August 1917 to 1921 lived on his Kaluga estate of Pritykino. Upon returning to Moscow, he was elected chairman of the Moscow branch of the All-Russian Writers' Union, worked in the Cooperative Writers' Shop and in Studio Italiano. Having received permission to go abroad due to illness, Zaitsev settled in Berlin, from where he moved to Paris.

By this time, he had already experienced the strong influence of the religious philosophy of V. Solovyov and N. Berdyaev, which, according to his later testimony, pierced the “pantheistic robe of youth” and gave a strong “impetus to faith.” Zaitsev’s new worldview is evidenced by the “life portraits” he wrote in the 1920s (Alexey man of God, Saint Sergius of Radonezh, both 1925) and essays on journeys to holy places (Athos, 1928, Valaam, 1936).

The same sentiments prevail in novels dating back to the period of emigration. Among them, The Golden Pattern (1926) stands out, where the heroes, having experienced all the horrors of the recent hard times, come to the idea that “Russia bears the punishment of redemption... There is no need to regret the past. There is so much sinfulness and unworthiness in him.”

There are dramas, horrors - yes, but we live in the name of beauty...

Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich

The autobiographical tetralogy Gleb's Journey (1937–1953) recreates childhood and teenage years hero, coinciding with the time of the impending turning point in the destinies of Russia. Having led the hero along familiar paths that lead from the earthly to the eternal, Zaitsev breaks off the narrative when it reached the 1930s, and the hero felt the providential meaning contained in the coincidence of his name with the name of the great martyr, especially revered by the Russian church. Often compared in criticism with the Life of Arsenyev, Zaitsev’s tetralogy really has common features with the work of I.A. Bunin, although the sensual principle is muted in it, which is almost absent even in the third volume - Youth (1950), which tells the story of the difficult love of Gleb and Ellie (under this name Zaitsev’s wife V.A. Oreshnikova is depicted; she and V.N. Bunina are dedicated to his Tale of Faith, 1968, and Another Faith, 1969).

Summarizing the experience of Russian emigration in an article dedicated to the 25th anniversary of his departure from Moscow, Zaitsev expressed the main theme of everything he created after he left his homeland: “We are a drop of Russia... no matter how poor and powerless we are, never to anyone we won't give in highest values, which are the values ​​of the spirit." This motif dominates both his journalism (the series of articles in the newspaper “Vozrozhdenie” in the fall of 1939 - spring of 1940, subsequently published under the general title Days), and especially in memoir prose, which occupies the main place in the last period of the writer’s work, is especially noteworthy. Zaitsev's books of memoirs Moscow (1939) and Faraway (1965) contain a holistic and vivid portrait of the pre-revolutionary era, captured in its ideological ferment and in the richness of its spiritual life. Zaitsev proved himself to be a true master of literary portraiture, often, as in the chapters about Bunin or Z. Gippius, summing up an objective result difficult relationships, which connected the memoirist with these people for decades.