Andreev Daniil. Daniil Leonidovich Andreev: biography, photos and interesting facts The main literary works of Daniil Andreev

Andreev Daniil Leonidovich (1906-1959), Russian poet, prose writer.

Born on October 20 (November 2), 1906 in Berlin, the son of the writer L. N. Andreev. The mother died during childbirth, the child was raised by his grandmother and aunt. The atmosphere of the house, where famous writers and artists visited (I. A. Bunin, M. Gorky, A. N. Scriabin, F. I. Chaliapin...), had a significant impact on the spiritual formation of Dani-Daniil. He began writing poetry and prose early.

After graduating from high school and the Higher Literary Courses, Andreev worked as a graphic designer. He continued to write poetry and prose, unable to publish.

The main theme of the novel “Wanderers of the Night” (1937) was a new religion that unites all world religions. Andreev called her the “Rose of the World.”

During the Great Patriotic War, Andreev worked on the poems “Amber” and “Germans” (not completed). In 1942 he was drafted into the army and took part in the fighting near Leningrad. At the end of the war he was demobilized and worked as a graphic designer at the Moscow Museum of Communications.

In 1946, in collaboration with S. Matveev, he published the book “Significant Studies of Mountainous Central Asia.” Work on a book about Russian travelers in Africa was interrupted in 1947 by the arrest of Andreev and his wife. Andreev was accused of preparing a terrorist act and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

He served his sentence in Vladimir prison. His health was compromised, but his creative spirit remained strong. Together with his neighbors in the “academic” cell, historian L. Rakov and physiologist V. Parin, he wrote the book The Newest Plutarch. An illustrated biographical dictionary of imaginary famous figures of all countries and times from A to Z (published in 1991). In prison, Andreev wrote the main works of his life - the books “Russian Gods” (1955, published in 1993), “Iron Mystery” (1956, published in 1999) and “Rose of the World” (1958, published in 1991). These works embody his religious and philosophical system of the universe.

Andreev wrote that the names of the bearers of dark and light forces (Gagtungr, Yarosvet, Navna, etc.), the names of the layers of the universe (Enrof, Shadanakar) were heard by him during transcendental wanderings in other worlds. Mystical revelations are described by Andreev with the help of expressive metaphors, unusual rhythmic structure and newly invented words. The poet explained the need for word creation as follows: “There is comfort in tried and tested words, / But they don’t pour / Young wine into old wineskins. / To new understandings - a new sign / The poet and magician are obliged to give. / Seeker of the Word" (Not for the sake of ringing beauty... 1955).

Andreev called the book “Russian Gods,” which reflects the main events of Russian history, a poetic ensemble. It includes poems, poetic symphonies and poetic cycles. One of the main poems included in the book is “Leningrad Apocalypse.” Andreev defined the method by which it was written as “through-through realism,” thus emphasizing that images of other worlds appear through the pictures of reality.

The “Iron Mystery” describes the struggle between light and dark forces in the history of Russia and more broadly - in all layers of the universe. In “The Rose of the World,” Andreev wrote a metahistory of Russian culture, including that created by A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol, L. N. Tolstoy and other artists, whom he called messengers. Andreev believed that the creation of a single universal religion - the “Rose of the World” - is the only alternative to the apocalypse.

The release of the writer from prison remained impossible for several years after the death of Stalin and the 20th Party Congress, because Andreev submitted a statement to the review commission in which he wrote: “I did not intend to kill anyone, in this part I ask for my case reconsider.

But until there is freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the Soviet Union, I ask you not to consider me a completely Soviet person.” He was released in 1957. After leaving prison, Andreev continued to work on “The Rose of the World” and was engaged in poetic translations. In collaboration with Z. Rahim, he translated R. Hayashi’s work from the Japanese.

Daniil Leonidovich died on March 30, 1959. On April 3, Andreev’s funeral service took place in the Church of the Deposition of the Robe on Shabolovka (the funeral service was conducted by Archpriest Nikolai Golubtsov) and the funeral was held at the Novodevichy Cemetery - next to his mother’s grave.

Not a single work of Daniil Leonidovich was published during his lifetime.

In 2003, at the request of the writer’s widow Alla Andreeva, composer Alexey Kurbatov wrote music for Daniil Andreev’s poem “The Leningrad Apocalypse”.

Original source: aphorisme.ru

From the speech of Alla Andreeva
March 10, 1989 in the Moscow House of Architects

A. A. Andreeva: Poets Arseny Tarkovsky and Maria Petrovykh studied with Daniil Leonidovich at the Higher Literary Courses. Having started his literary work, he realized that what he was writing would never be published. Therefore, he mastered the modest profession of a type designer. Since 1937, in addition to poetry, he wrote the novel “Wanderers of the Night”; before being sent to the front, he buried the manuscript of the novel in the ground. In 1945, he dug up the half-decayed manuscript and began work on the novel all over again. We met him in 1937 and got married in 1945. In April 1947 we were arrested. The novel “Wanderers of the Night” was a ready-made conspiracy for the NKVD. Everyone who read the novel or even heard about it was imprisoned. “Rose of the World” was created entirely in the Vladimir prison; it dates from 1950-1958.

Question: How did you manage to preserve the “Rose of the World” in prison conditions?

A. A. Andreeva: Daniil Leonidovich wrote it down on pieces of paper. The sheets were sometimes taken away during “shmons.” But everyone in the cell participated in saving the sheets, even the Japanese and Chinese, who could not read them. By the way, such interesting people as Shulgin and Academician Parin sat in the same cell. Nowadays they write a lot about Stalin’s prisons and camps. But there was something bright - these are good people who are everywhere. Think about it: people saved notes just because another person wrote poetry that they couldn’t read! And then David Ivanovich Krot became the head of the prison, and he gave Andreev paper, ink, and allowed him to write. And since 1955, we were allowed to correspond, and Daniil Leonidovich, in order to take advantage of another chance to preserve his poems, sent them to me on postcards. The postcards were covered with writing along, across and diagonally. The guards couldn’t make out anything, they waved their hands and gave it to me. And I was serving a sentence in a Mordovian camp, painting scenery.

I was released in 1956, by commission, a year earlier than Daniil Leonidovich, and immediately went to Vladimir to meet him in prison. I was sitting opposite him, and next to me the matron was thrilled with emotion: people had not seen each other for nine years. And he handed me a notebook under the table. Why was he released later than me? He wrote to the rehabilitation commission that he was not a terrorist at all, but as long as there was no freedom of conscience and freedom of speech in the Soviet Union, he asked not to be considered a completely Soviet person. The only thing the commission was able to do after reading such a statement was to reduce the term from 25 years to 10, which he served until 1957. I went to prison and asked for Daniil Leonidovich’s things. And a miracle happened: the head of the prison, Krot, gave me his manuscripts. They brought me a bag. Everything was mixed up in it: notebooks, underpants, sheets of paper, some rags and more notebooks! “The Rose of the World” was all written on scraps; he compiled the book only later. And I took the manuscript to another city, to a typist I knew; not everyone could be trusted with this. She was typing at work: there was the text that she typed according to her position, and on top was a piece of the manuscript “Roses of the World”. If anyone came in, she immediately hid him.

Question: This is not the first evening of Daniil Andreev’s creativity. How many were there in total?

A. A. Andreeva: A lot of! They started a year ago in Paris. I went there to visit Daniil Leonidovich’s nephew and there I gave my first reading of his poems. Then there were evenings at the Palace of Culture. Serafimovich, the Hammer and Sickle House of Culture, the Red October House of Culture, in the Russian Spiritual Poetry group - I don’t remember them all!

...In the poems of Daniil Andreev there is a terrible saturation of meaning, such that there are as if there are three in each poem. Nowadays in poetry there is no such density - small topics: they take a fact and wrap three boxes around it (shows with his hand how they wrap it) ...

Question: Isn’t it time to organize a fundraiser for the publication of “The Rose of the World” in its entirety?

A. A. Andreeva: This may have to be done, but a little later. For now we are busy carefully checking the text of the book. During its circulation in Samizdat, monstrous distortions occurred in it. When they showed me what was now walking around Moscow, I was horrified!

Question: Tell me, do the ideas of Daniil Andreev and Nicholas Roerich have something in common? Moreover, don't they match one to one?

A. A. Andreeva: We did not know Roerich’s books then. There is always a roll call. But that “one to one” - I categorically disagree with this. I was told that the followers of Nicholas Roerich have a negative attitude towards the “Rose of the World”.

Question: Is it true that the “Rose of the World” is just a conglomerate of religions?

A. A. Andreeva: Not true. This is theosophy - a conglomerate of religions, and “Rose of the World” is a deeply independent and original work. This is where it differs from Theosophy. After all, how Daniil Leonidovich was drawn into theosophy! And two respected ladies like E. A. Balmont and O. N. Annenkova persuaded him to join the anthroposophical society. He politely but firmly refused. Of course, there are some unorthodox things in The Rose of the World. But this is very little. He treated women chivalrously - hence the idea of ​​Global Femininity. There are places where he was certainly wrong. There are also unsuccessful words, there is a male thirst for the prophecy of utopias. Yes, yes, we women know that men have this trait. After all, he is a man, and not even a clergyman. But here is the testimony of Vasily Ivanovich Parin, who was sitting with him: the impression is that he does not write, but writes down, quickly, quickly. But he often wrote in poetry!

(ALLA ALEXANDROVNA'S AUTOGRAPH!)

...Opinions of different priests about the “Rose of the World” are different. It all depends on the breadth of views, on the degree of tolerance. Daniil Leonidovich had a spiritual father - priest Nikolai Golubtsov from the Church of the Deposition of the Robe in Shabolovka. In this church Fr. Nikolai married us at the beginning of 1958. He entered the hospital where Daniil Leonidovich was dying, confessed and gave him communion. He sang the funeral service after his death. U o. Nikolai had no complaints about the Rose of the World. At the evening of creativity of Daniil Andreev in the Serafimovich Palace of Culture, Fr. Valentin Dronov from the Danilov Monastery spoke well of Andreev’s entire legacy. He believes that “The Rose of the World” is an Orthodox book, since its main idea is the World Logos,” concluded Alla Alexandrovna.

Born on October 20 (November 2), 1906 in Berlin, the son of the writer L.N. Andreev. The mother died during childbirth, the child was raised by his grandmother and aunt. The atmosphere of the house, which was visited by famous writers and artists (I.A. Bunin, M. Gorky, A.N. Scriabin, F.I. Chaliapin, etc.), had a significant influence on Andreev’s spiritual formation. He began writing poetry and prose early.

After graduating from high school and the Higher Literary Courses, Andreev worked as a graphic designer. He continued to write poetry and prose, unable to publish. The main theme of the novel Wanderers of the Night (1937) was a new religion that unites all world religions. Andreev called her the Rose of the World.

During the Great Patriotic War, Andreev worked on the poems Yantari and Germans (not completed). In 1942 he was drafted into the army and took part in the fighting near Leningrad. At the end of the war he was demobilized and worked as a graphic designer at the Moscow Museum of Communications. In 1946, in collaboration with S. Matveev, he published the book Significant Studies of Mountainous Central Asia. Work on a book about Russian travelers in Africa was interrupted in 1947 by the arrest of Andreev and his wife. Andreev was accused of preparing a terrorist act and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

He served his sentence in Vladimir prison. His health was compromised, but his creative spirit remained strong. Together with his neighbors in the “academic” cell, historian L. Rakov and physiologist V. Parin, he wrote the book The Newest Plutarch. An illustrated biographical dictionary of imaginary famous figures of all countries and times from A to Z (published in 1991). In prison, Andreev wrote the main works of his life - the books Russian Gods (1955, published in 1993), The Iron Mystery (1956, published in 1999) and the Rose of the World (1958, published in 1991). These works embody his religious and philosophical system of the universe. Andreev wrote that the names of the bearers of dark and light forces (Gagtungr, Yarosvet, Navna, etc.), the names of the layers of the universe (Enrof, Shadanakar) were heard by him during transcendental wanderings in other worlds. Mystical revelations are described by Andreev with the help of expressive metaphors, unusual rhythmic structure and newly invented words. The poet explained the need for word creation as follows: “There is comfort in tried and tested words, / But they don’t pour / Young wine into old wineskins. / To new understandings - a new sign / The poet and magician are obliged to give. / Word seeker" (Not for the sake of ringing beauty..., 1955).

Andreev called the book Russian Gods, which reflects the main events of Russian history, a poetic ensemble. It includes poems, poetic symphonies and poetic cycles. One of the main poems included in the book is the Leningrad Apocalypse. Andreev defined the method by which it was written as “through-through realism,” thus emphasizing that images of other worlds appear through the pictures of reality.

The Iron Mystery describes the struggle between light and dark forces in the history of Russia and, more broadly, in all layers of the universe. In the Rose of the World, Andreev wrote a meta-history of Russian culture, including that created by A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, N.V. Gogol, L.N. Tolstoy and other artists, whom he called messengers. Andreev believed that the creation of a single universal religion - the Rose of the World - is the only alternative to the apocalypse.

The writer's release from prison remained impossible for several years after the death of Stalin and the 20th Party Congress, because... Andreev submitted a statement to the commission for review of cases, in which he wrote: “I did not intend to kill anyone, in this part I ask that my case be reconsidered. But until there is freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the Soviet Union, I ask you not to consider me a completely Soviet person.” He was released in 1957. After leaving prison, Andreev continued to work on the Rose of the World and was engaged in poetic translations. In collaboration with Z. Rahim, he translated R. Hayashi’s work from Japanese.

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Writer. Mystic. Esoteric. Daniil Andreev was born on October 20 (November 2), 1906 in Berlin, the son of the writer L.N. Andreev. The mother died during childbirth, the child was raised by his grandmother and aunt. The atmosphere of the house, which was visited by famous writers and artists (I.A. Bunin, M. Gorky, A.N. Scriabin, F.I. Chaliapin, etc.), had a significant influence on Andreev’s spiritual formation. He began writing poetry and prose early. The revolution of 1917 transformed many destinies and lives, including Daniil's.

Writing career

Realizing that his work and views were incompatible with Soviet reality, after graduating from high school and Higher Literary Courses, Andreev worked as a graphic designer. He continued to write poetry and prose, unable to publish. The main theme of the novel Wanderers of the Night (1937) was a new religion that unites everything. Andreev called her the Rose of the World. During the Great Patriotic War, Andreev worked on the poems Yantari and Germans (not completed). In 1942 he was drafted into the army and took part in the fighting near Leningrad. At the end of the war he was demobilized and worked as a graphic designer at the Moscow Museum of Communications. In 1946, in collaboration with S. Matveev, he published the book Significant Studies of Mountainous Central Asia.

Work on a book about Russian travelers in Africa was interrupted in 1947 by the arrest of Andreev and his wife. Andreev was accused of preparing a terrorist act and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He served his sentence in Vladimir prison. His health was compromised, but his creative spirit remained strong. Together with his neighbors in the “academic” cell, historian L. Rakov and physiologist V. Parin, he wrote the book The Newest Plutarch. An illustrated biographical dictionary of imaginary famous figures of all countries and times from A to Z (published in 1991).

The main literary works of Daniil Andreev

In prison, Andreev wrote the main works of his life - the books Russian Gods (1955, published in 1993), The Iron Mystery (1956, published in 1999) and the Rose of the World (1958, published in 1991). These works embody his religious and philosophical system of the universe. Andreev wrote that the names of the bearers of dark and light forces (Gagtungr, Yarosvet, Navna, etc.), the names of the layers of the universe (Enrof, Shadanakar) were heard by him during transcendental wanderings in other worlds. Mystical revelations are described by Andreev with the help of expressive metaphors, unusual rhythmic structure and newly invented words. The poet explained the need for word creation as follows: “There is comfort in tried and tested words, / But they don’t pour / Young wine into old wineskins. / To new understandings - a new sign / The poet and magician are obliged to give. / Word Seeker” (Not for the sake of ringing beauty..., 1955). Andreev called the book Russian Gods, which reflects the main events of Russian history, a poetic ensemble. It includes poems, poetic symphonies and poetic cycles. One of the main poems included in the book is the Leningrad Apocalypse. Andreev defined the method by which it was written as “through-through realism,” thus emphasizing that images of other worlds appear through the pictures of reality. The Iron Mystery describes the struggle between light and dark forces in the history of Russia and, more broadly, in all layers of the universe. In the Rose of the World, Andreev wrote a meta-history of Russian culture, including that created by A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, N.V. Gogol, L.N. Tolstoy and other artists, whom he called messengers. Andreev believed that the creation of a single universal religion - the Rose of the World - is the only alternative to the apocalypse.

The writer's release from prison remained impossible for several years after the death of Stalin and the 20th Party Congress, because... Andreev submitted a statement to the commission for review of cases, in which he wrote: “I did not intend to kill anyone, in this part I ask that my case be reconsidered. But until there is freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the Soviet Union, I ask you not to consider me a completely Soviet person.” He was released in 1957.

After leaving prison, Andreev continued to work on the Rose of the World and was engaged in poetic translations. In collaboration with Z. Rahim, he translated R. Hayashi’s work from Japanese.

Daniil Leonidovich Andreev(October 20 [November 2], Berlin - March 30, Moscow) - Russian writer, literary critic, philosopher. Author of the mystical work “Rose of the World”.

Biography [ | ]

Childhood and youth[ | ]

The second son of the famous Russian writer Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev (1871-1919) and the grandniece of Taras Shevchenko Alexandra Mikhailovna Andreeva (nee Veligorskaya; 1881-1906), brother of V. L. Andreev was born in the Grunewald district of Berlin at 26 Herbertstrasse.

A few days after Daniel's birth, his mother dies of puerperal fever. The shocked father blames his newborn son for the death of his beloved wife, and grandmother Evfrosinya Varfolomeevna Veligorskaya (nee Shevchenko; 1846-1913) takes the boy to Moscow, to the family of his other daughter, Elizaveta Mikhailovna Dobrova (nee Veligorskaya; 1868-1942), the wife of a famous Moscow doctor Philip Aleksandrovich Dobrov. At this time the Dobrovs lived in Chulkov’s house (No. 38), on the corner of Arbat and Spasopeskovsky Lane. Daniil was sick a lot, it was difficult to get him out. Later, the Dobrovs settle in Maly Levshinsky Lane (No. 5).

From the sick six-year-old Andreev, his grandmother becomes infected with diphtheria and dies. That same summer, at a dacha on the Black River near St. Petersburg, a boy was stopped at the last moment on a bridge over the river: he wanted to drown himself, passionately wanting to see his mother and grandmother again as soon as possible.

Surrounded by care and attention, the boy was raised in his aunt's family as his own son. The Dobrov House was one of the literary and musical centers of Moscow at that time; I. A. Bunin, M. Gorky (godfather of Daniel), A. N. Scriabin, F. I. Chaliapin, actors of the Art Theater and others visited it. atmosphere at home, the boy begins to write poetry and prose early.

In the spring of 1915, the first poem “The Garden” appeared. In the same year, the first stories “The Journey of Insects” and “The Life of Antediluvian Animals” were written (not preserved). Also in childhood, according to the recollections of his wife A. A. Andreeva, Daniil writes a huge epic, where the action takes place in a fictitious interplanetary space. In the nursery, at the level of his height, the boy draws portraits of the rulers of the dynasty he has imagined.

In September 1917, Andreev entered the Moscow Gymnasium E. A. Repman (Nikitsky Boulevard, 9/10), which he graduated from in 1923. In 1924, he continued his studies at the Higher State Literary Courses of the Mosprofobra. Then work on the novel “Sinners” begins. In 1926 he joined (existed until 1929).

At the age of 15, in August 1921, in one of the squares surrounding the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, young Daniil saw a picture of the “Heavenly Kremlin”, which he writes about in the first chapter of the second book “Roses of the World”. The second event of the same order, expressed in the experience of World History as a single mystical flow, happens to him on Easter 1928 in the Church of the Intercession in Levshin.

At the end of August 1926, Andreev married Alexandra Lvovna Gubler (pseudonym Gorobova; 1907-1985), who studied with him at the Higher State Literary Courses. The wedding takes place in the Church of the Resurrection of the Word on the Assumption Vrazhek. The marriage does not last long and breaks up by the end of the second month. In February 1927, the couple officially divorced, and Andreev left the Higher State Literary Courses.

In 1928, the poem “Red Moscow” (not preserved) appeared, work continued on the novel “Sinners” (not preserved), and the cycle “Catacombs” began. The summer of 1928 takes place in Tarusa.

Pre-war years. War[ | ]

In the 1930s, Andreev worked as a type designer, writing advertisements and inscriptions, devoting most of his time and energy to literary activities. In 1930, work began on the poem “Solstice” (not preserved). In the summer of the following year, he met M.A. Voloshin, and on July 29, 1931, on the banks of the Nerussa, Andreev experienced what he called the Breakthrough of cosmic consciousness.

From February to March 1932, Andreev worked first as a literary editor, and then as a head. social services sector of the newspaper at the Moscow plant "Dynamo", from where he leaves at his own request. In the summer of the same year he finished the collection of poems “The Diary of a Poet” (destroyed by the author no later than 1933). In 1933, Andreev began work on the essay “Outlines of the Preliminary Doctrine,” which remained unfinished, and on the cycle “Foothills.” On October 20, 1934, he visits Koktebel and writes the poem “The Grave of M. Voloshin.”

In 1935, Andreev joined the Moscow City Committee of Graphic Designers. On September 8, the “Start” of the poem “The Song of Monsalvat” appears (the poem is completed in its entirety in 1938). In 1937, on the advice of E.P. Peshkova, he wrote a letter to I.V. Stalin with a request to facilitate the return of his brother V.L. Andreev from emigration. In the fall of 1937, Andreev began work on a novel about the spiritual quest of the intelligentsia during these years, “Wanderers of the Night,” conceived as an “epic of the spirit” and a portrait of the era; interrupted by the war, the work was almost completed in 1947.

At the beginning of March 1937, Andreev met Alla Alexandrovna Ivasheva-Musatova (nee Bruzhes; 1915-2005), who 8 years later became his wife. Convicted along with her husband and released a year before him, A. A. Andreeva became a support for Andreev in the last years of imprisonment and in the difficult years after. Preserving her husband’s legacy, A. A. Andreeva made it possible to publish his main works at the end of the 20th century, including “The Rose of the World.” Subsequently, for 15 years she was the wife of the son of the writer I. A. Belousov, Evgeniy (1907-1977).

At the end of April 1941, F.A. Dobrov, whom Andreev considered his adoptive father, dies. During the Great Patriotic War, Andreev worked on the poems “Amber” (1942) and “The Germans” (not completed), and completed the cycle of poems “Catacombs” (1928-1941). In July 1942, E. M. Dobrova (nee Veligorskaya) died.

In October 1942, Andreev was drafted into the army. As part of the 196th Red Banner Rifle Division on the ice of Lake Ladoga in January 1943, Andreev entered besieged Leningrad. He was a member of the funeral team, an orderly, and a graphic designer. Received the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad". On June 25, 1945, he was recognized as a disabled person of the Great Patriotic War of the 2nd group with a pension of 300 rubles.

Arrest. Prison years[ | ]

last years of life[ | ]

In the spring of 1958, after an exacerbation of angina and atherosclerosis, Andreev was admitted to the hospital of the Institute of Therapy of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences. On June 4, Archpriest Nikolai Golubtsov conducts the wedding of Daniil and Alla Andreev in the Deposition of the Robe Church on Donskoy, after which they set off on a trip on the Pomyalovsky steamer along the route Moscow - Ufa - Moscow. On July 5, 1958, Andreev finished the eleventh book of “Roses of the World,” and on October 12, the entire treatise.

Memory [ | ]

In 2003, at the request of the writer’s widow Alla Andreeva, the composer wrote music for Daniil Andreev’s poem “The Leningrad Apocalypse”.

Bibliography [ | ]

• I'll glow early. - M., 1975.
• Russian Gods. - M., 1989.
• Iron mystery. - M., 1990.
• The newest Plutarch. - M., 1991 (co-authored with V.V. Parin and L.L. Rakov).
• Rose of the world. - M., 1991 and other publications.

A.A. Andreeva

Life of Daniil Andreev,

told by his wife

In ancient times - they seem long ago

by the volume of events that lay between us and

them - the biography began with a listing of ancestors.

Perhaps this careful look into the earthly origins of personality makes sense.

Daniil Andreev’s father, the famous Russian writer Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev, was born in the Oryol region, on that amazing Russian land that was the birthplace of so many wonderful and different Russian writers. According to family legend, Leonid Andreev’s father was the illegitimate son of the Oryol landowner Karpov (name still unknown) and the courtyard girl Glafira. The master married the girl to the serf shoemaker Andreev - hence the surname. Leonid Nikolaevich's mother, Anastasia Nikolaevna, is the orphaned daughter of the bankrupt Polish nobleman Patskovsky.

Daniel's mother was Alexandra Mikhailovna Veligorskaya, and her father was Polish. The Veligorsky surname is a Russified form of the family name of one of the branches of the Vielgorsky counts (more correctly, the Vielgurskys), who were deprived of their title and fortune for participating in the 1863 uprising. On the female side, Alexandra Mikhailovna is Ukrainian. Her mother, Daniel's grandmother, is Evfrosinya Varfolomeevna Shevchenko. The surname Shevchenko, generally very common in Ukraine, is not a coincidence, but a relationship with Taras: Bartholomew Shevchenko was his second cousin, brother-in-law and sworn brother.

All these family threads were intertwined on November 2, 1906 (new style) in a creature who was born in Berlin: this was the second son of Leonid Nikolaevich and Alexandra Mikhailovna, named by his mother Daniil.

Daniil Leonidovich was always - even strangely - indifferent to his origins, he never tried to conduct any genealogical research. What is presented here is the result of a study (almost an investigation) by employees of the Oryol Literary Museum and Kiev resident Olga Vasilyevna Roitsyna, the wife of Daniil’s second cousin Anatoly Methodievich Levitsky.

Fate itself stood over the newborn's cradle menacingly and clearly.

Twenty-six-year-old, completely healthy, loved by her husband, Shurochka died shortly after the birth of her second son from what was then called “puerperal fever.” Her sweet, bright appearance remained in many memories of her contemporaries; There is also a description of what a tragedy her death was for Leonid Nikolaevich. Sometimes he appears simply distraught with grief. He could not see the newborn - the cause of his wife's death. It seemed that the child was doomed. But Alexandra Mikhailovna’s elder sister, Elizaveta Mikhailovna Dobrova, came to Berlin from Moscow. She took an orphaned creature to Moscow, in which there was barely a glimmer of life, and the child found a wonderful family. This family cannot be called anything other than family. Until he was six years old, Elizaveta and Alexandra’s mother, Businka, Evfrosinya Varfolomeevsha Shevchenko, constantly took care of him. Strong-willed and powerful, she enjoyed the unconditional sincere respect of everyone around her - near and far.

Perhaps, in our modern Babylon, with towers that fall long before the middle of construction, the appearance of the former cities is almost indistinguishable. But each city had its own unique spiritual appearance, which left its mark on its inhabitants: a Tver resident was different from a St. Petersburg resident, Muscovites were different from Oryol residents.

Daniil Andreev’s childhood and youth were accompanied by Moscow.

The Kremlin, entering which a child would take off his headdress at any time of the year, despite the cries of the nanny: he knew that he could not enter the Kremlin otherwise.

Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It is in vain to argue about its architectural perfection or imperfection - it was a symbol of Moscow, and the image of the White Temple above the bend of the river is inseparable from Andreev’s work.

The Dobrov family, very typical of former Moscow, lived in Maly Levshinsky Lane. Until the sixties, there was a two-story house there, unremarkable in any way. He was very old, he survived the fire of Moscow in the days of Napoleon. Such houses in Moscow were called pre-Napoleonic.

The Dobros occupied the entire first floor, and the kitchen and all kinds of utility rooms were in the basement, where a steep and narrow staircase led.

The front door was straight from the alley - large, tall, with a copper plaque: “Doctor Philip Aleksandrovich Dobrov.” Entering the house, you had to climb several wide wooden steps, and everyone entering was greeted by a huge, wall-length, very beautiful mirror. Next, a large, white door with glass led to the left, into the hallway. To the right from the front hall there was a door to Philip Alexandrovich’s office, in which his son, Alexander Filippovich, later lived, then it was Daniil Leonidovich’s room, and even later - our beloved one, which in the book “Russian Gods” remained in the title of one of the chapters : "From a small room."

The door to the left from the front led into the hall. I already found it divided by curtains into several cells, in which the entire older generation of the family huddled: Philip Alexandrovich, Elizaveta Mikhailovna and another sister, Ekaterina Mikhailovna, by Mitrofanova’s husband.

This happened after the revolution, when the entire Russian traditional way of life that met human needs was disfigured by “condensations” and “communal apartments”, which did not bring happiness to anyone, and disfigured no less a number of human destinies than war, prisons and camps.

And in Daniel’s happy childhood, the hall played a big role. The Dobrovs' house was a patriarchal Moscow house, which means it was hospitable and open. Open to a very large number of very different people who disagree with each other, who were united by their intellectual level, breadth of interests and respect for each other.

In the old days, the room next to the hall was the bedroom of Philip Alexandrovich and Elizaveta Mikhailovna, and at the door separating these two rooms, or rather, at the keyhole, little Daniil was sticking out, looking at Chaliapin, and Bunin, and Scriabin, and the actors of the Art Theater, and Gorky, and many, many more guests of the Dobrovs.

Daniil not only loved the Dobrovs - everyone loved them - not only perceived this family as his own, but said many times: “It’s so good that I grew up with the Dobrovs, and not with my father.”

Daniil's children's room was located further along the corridor leading from the hallway to the depths of the apartment. I no longer found it, only from his stories I know that along the entire room, at the level of a child’s height, hung portraits of the rulers of a fictional dynasty - an echo of the impression that struck a child’s soul from the “gallery of kings” in the Kremlin: on the ceiling of this gallery there were mosaics wonderful portraits of the Grand Dukes and Tsars of Moscow.

He began writing very early, even in childhood. He wrote poetry and prose: a huge epic where the action took place in interplanetary space. The planets were not those that we know, but were all made up. They had their own religious cults, naturally based on information read from a child’s presentation of Greek myths, but with a very nice addition of their own: in addition to the Supreme gods, gods of war and goddesses of love that were traditionally believed, there was also the god of Fun invented by them.

Before school, Daniil studied at home. He had a teacher - to my shame, I forgot his name - obviously an intelligent person and a talented teacher. The lively and playful boy, by agreement with this teacher, humbled his character for two Sunday rewards: if he behaved “well” all week (probably this concept was very loose), then on Sunday the teacher drew him another letter of the Indian alphabet and took him around Moscow on a new (for him) tram route.

Knowing what a cheerful, affectionate childhood this spoiled, kind, inventively playful little boy had, the following story sounds surprising.

Evfrosinya Varfolomeevna, Businka, died when her beloved grandson was six years old. The grandson fell ill with diphtheria, and the grandmother who was caring for him contracted the same diphtheria. The grandson recovered, the grandmother died.

The recovering child did not see her death or funeral. They didn't know how to tell him about it.

Alexandra Filippovna, the eldest daughter of the Dobrovs, took on the difficult task. She began to tell the child that Businka was in the hospital, recovering, but missed her daughter, his mother. In order to see her, you have to die, but Businka is worried how Danya will react to this.

Gradually, Alexandra Filippovna’s efforts led to the boy writing a letter to his grandmother in which he sent her to her daughter in heaven.

But longing for his grandmother, the desire to see an unfamiliar mother, and the idea that had formed in the child’s soul of death as a road to Paradise led to an unexpected result. In the summer after separation from Businka, Dobrov and Daniil lived on the Chernaya River, where Leonid Andreev’s house was (but not in this house), and the boy was caught on a bridge over the river when he was about to drown himself - not from grief, but from a passionate desire to see his lost loved ones .

Childhood gave way to adolescence, which coincided with revolution and devastation. Life became difficult and hungry, each family looked for ways to survive. F.A. Dobrov composed some extraordinary yeast, very useful and in great demand; That’s what they were called: Dr. Dobrov’s yeast. Apparently, they had to be drunk, and it is not clear why no one in the family, including the inventor himself, saved the recipe...

Yeast, in accordance with orders, was distributed throughout Moscow by children: Danya and Tanya, his friend from the age of three, schoolmate and friend until the end of his life, Tatyana Ivanovna Olovyanshnikova, Morozov’s husband. Having started with these business trips, Daniil then wandered around Moscow alone throughout his youth, often from evening until morning.

The Dobrovs were an Orthodox family. All church holidays were celebrated in the house and fasts were observed; but there was no intolerance in them: everyone in contact with this family was free in their beliefs, statements and even doubts. One of the close friends at home was the actress of the Art Theater, Nadezhda Sergeevna Butova. Of her roles, I only know the role of Stavrogin’s mother in “The Possessed.” So she revealed to fifteen-year-old Daniel the depth and spiritual beauty of Orthodox ritual, which he remembered with gratitude all his life.

But he was religious not by upbringing, not by tradition, but by his entire personality.

* * *

He studied at a private gymnasium, which he graduated from as a Soviet school. The gymnasium was founded by Evgenia Albertovna Repman and Vera Fedorovna Fedorova. It was located in Merzlyakovsky Lane and was called “Repmanovskaya”.

Daniil loved the gymnasium very much and, apparently, there was something to love. This fact speaks about the atmosphere, which is unusual for an educational institution. After the revolution, Evgenia Albertovna lived in Sudak, Crimea. Sick, with paralyzed legs, she had no means of subsistence. Therefore, former students of the gymnasium, who graduated in the twenties, collected money for it every month. This continued until the start of the war; Daniel played a major role in collecting this money.

I think that his dream of creating a special school - the dream of his whole life, reflected in the "Rose of the World" (raising a person of an ennobled image) - is somehow rooted in the peculiar atmosphere of this school.

This dream is the creation of a school for ethically gifted children; not young artists, biologists or musical prodigies, but children with special, namely ethical spiritual qualities*.

* As far as I know from Daniel’s story, among all the various undertakings of the twenties there was one similar to this one. The fate of three people associated with something like such a group is known: one of them drowned while rescuing a drowning man; the second went to a cave monastery in the Caucasus; the third replaced the mother of her son, who became a monk.

* * *

In the same class with Daniil there was a girl - I will only mention her name, Galya - whom he fell in love with as a child and loved for many years. She did not love him, and throughout their youth and youth she was marked by the stamp of this complex relationship - deep friendship and unrequited love. Later there was a period of shared feelings, and what is so vaguely called friendship - deep spiritual interest in each other, mutual desire for good, devoid of any egoism, understanding - remained until his death.

Galya was a person of rare nobility, charm and femininity. The cycle of poems “Moon Stones” is dedicated to her.

But I won't do that. This is untimely. He went through very dark and dangerous circles in his youth. No, he was neither a drunkard nor a libertine, nothing “dark” in the usual sense of the word was present in his life. In this life, everything that was most significant always lay on the plane of the irrational. The main burden of the terrible roads he traveled in his youth was completely unreal. If it were not for these dark roads, he would not have written much of what he wrote - a writer writes what he knows with his soul; you can’t invent anything - there will be no art in invention. His first marriage to a fellow student at the Higher Literary Courses, which he entered after graduation, dates back to his youth. The marriage was strange, and he, of course, was very guilty before this woman, which he knew and remembered all his life. And she paid him for his evil with friendship for life. She began, much later, to work for his release, and when I returned from prison, she helped me work for him.

I would like to note that throughout Daniel’s life he was accompanied by the sincere, devoted friendship of women.

* * *

His cousin, the son of Philip Alexandrovich Dobrov, Alexander Filippovich, found a way out for him. He himself, having graduated from the Architectural Institute, was unable to become an architect after suffering from encephalitis and worked as a graphic designer. He taught Daniil Leonidovich how to write fonts, this made it possible to earn a modest living.

Daniel never stopped writing.

Unusual personality traits also determined the peculiarities of his work.

Tangible, real - to use his term - the experience of another reality. This was the vision of the Heavenly Kremlin above the earthly Kremlin for him at the age of 15.

Stunning in its power and repeatedly experienced, the experience of the closeness of Saint Seraphim in the temple during the reading of the Akathist to the Reverend.

A premonition of the image of a monster associated with the essence of the state, later understood and described by it.

A feeling, almost a vision of demonesses ruling over the Great Cities.

A powerful, happiness-filled touch on those whom he later called the Elements: beautiful beings, spirits of the earthly elements.

Andreev’s attitude towards nature cannot be called love for it, understanding by the word “love” what is usually understood: aesthetic admiration and awareness of the life-giving nature of an unpolluted ecological environment.

For him, literally, and not figuratively, everything around was alive: Earth and Sky, Wind and Snow, Rivers and Flowers.

I remember how delighted I was with his admission that I had no doubt about the real existence of brownies and that I was friends with them - that’s why my home was cozy...

He walked barefoot whenever possible. He said that he felt the Earth completely differently in different places. To my indignation: “Well, Earth, I understand that, but what can you feel on dirty city asphalt!” - the answer followed: “An impersonal feeling of the human mass, very strong.”

Everything that was written in his great work “Rose of the World” about nature was experienced by him directly, as in those chapters of the book “Russian Gods” that are devoted to this topic.

In the summer he visited both Moscow and Crimea, but most of all he loved to go to Trubchevsk. Unfortunately, I don't remember how he first got there. But once he gets there, he is forever fascinated by these places. He went on multi-day journeys on foot, almost always alone, barefoot, with a meager supply of simple food (he ate little at all) and smoke - he was an avid smoker. Spent the night in a random haystack, in the forest on moss.

Many poems responded to these travels. And the poem "Nemerech" is simply a description of one of these wanderings.

* * *

We met in March 1937. We were introduced by a person very close to both him and me. He called Daniil outside by phone. We approached a small house along Maly Levshinsky Lane, and a tall, thin, slender, despite his stoop, man with a very light and fast gait came out of the door of this house. It was snowing heavily, and that’s how I remember it: Blokov’s overnight snowfall, a tall man with a dark face and dark narrow eyes. A very warm hand. So he came into my life, and I entered the “Dobrovsky House,” as everyone called it.

In 1937, this house was like this: “old Dobrovs” - Philip Alexandrovich, who had already left work at the Second City Hospital and had a small private practice; Elizaveta Mikhailovna, a midwife by profession, is also no longer working.

The third of the Veligorsky sisters, Ekaterina Mikhailovna, also lived with them. She worked as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital, believing that the mentally ill were most in need of care and kindness. All three, as I already said, lived in a large room behind curtains, and the front part of this room served as a common dining room and there was also a piano, which Philip Alexandrovich played in the evenings.

In addition to the “old people” and Daniel, in the third room, which belonged to the family, lived the Dobrovs’ daughter, Alexandra Filippovna, and her husband, Alexander Viktorovich Kovalensky, a very interesting person, with a large, unique, kind of “cold-fiery” mind. Translator of Konopnicka, Slovacki, Ibsen, he himself was an extraordinary poet and writer. Not published. I read what I wrote to a few friends. All his works were destroyed at Lubyanka - he and his wife were arrested in our case. In Daniil’s youth, Alexander Viktorovich had a great influence on him, sometimes overwhelming.

The Dobrovs never got out of the habit of living with the door open. And this door was open to the hallway, where all the residents of the apartment and all visitors passed, and among the residents there was a woman who received a room under an NKVD warrant. And they lost so many friends in the depths of Lubyanka in 1937! The list of the dead was in one of the chapters of the novel “Wanderers of the Night,” which was called “Martyrology.” Daniil Leonidovich began writing this novel in 1937. Before him, he worked on the poem "The Song of Monsalvat", to some extent based on medieval legends. He did not finish this poem and never returned to it.

* * *

Since 1937, essentially, our common life with him has already been going on, first as very close friends, later as husband and wife.

The way we lived was the way a whole circle of people lived in those years, so I will try to tell you what that life was like.

The vast majority lived very poorly at that time. Almost everyone lived in communal apartments, where, for the most part, completely alien people, incompatible with each other, were forcibly shoved into them.

It is now said that there were frequent price cuts at that time. Perhaps I don't remember this; But I remember well how we bought 100 grams of butter or a piece of sausage - it was really very tasty and there were many varieties, but everyone looked at the price... And parcels with pasta were sent to provincial cities.

But this was only the background against which real life unfolded. And this, real life, was the wonderful concerts in the Great Hall of the Conservatory; there were meetings with friends - three or four people each, with muffled conversations (from the neighbors) on the most seemingly abstract topics - the most important for us.

Daniil Andreev, writing a poem about Monsalvat, was not only understandable in being captured by these images, he was infinitely dear and necessary to us. Because for us, Russians - i.e. involved in Russian culture - the theme of a hidden shrine, bringing spiritual help to those thirsty for this help in the surrounding terrible world, was probably the most precious.

Perhaps that is why Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” was not performed at the Bolshoi Theater in those years: not only we understood the urgency of the hidden shrine, but also those who destroyed temples - obvious shrines; who reduced the teaching of history in schools to a tendentious story about riots and revolutionary movements, where Spartacus was directly followed by the peasant wars in Germany; who broke out the crosses on the graves of Vladimir Solovyov, Yazykov and Khomyakov.

The Orthodox Church, with bells torn out like tongues, celebrated the Liturgy. There are no words to express our admiration for this unfading feat; it will never be clouded by any external untruth. The church carried the quiet fire of candles in shackled hands.

And at the concerts at the Conservatory, the music of Wagner sounded, and there we heard the ringing of the bells of Monsalvat, and at the Bolshoi Theater they even showed “Lohengrin” - most likely, out of thoughtlessness...

I don’t know how to describe the atmosphere of debilitating, sickening fear in which we lived all these years. It is difficult for me to outline the boundaries of this “we” - at least, these are all those whom I knew.

I think that no one in the entire history of civilized humanity has experienced such fear for such a long time. Firstly, by the number of layers it covers; secondly, because there was no need for any reason for this fear. And of course, due to the many years of this soul-crippling horror. It is not true that 1937 ("thirty damned...", etc.) was the worst. It’s just that this year a huge snake crawled close to the communists, and that’s the reason for the cry. And it all started from the beginning, from 1917 - 1918.

For me personally, the feeling of this stranglehold of fear on my throat, now weakening, now tightening, arose in 1931 - I was 16 years old, when my uncle was arrested in the process of the Industrial Party. Waiting full of horror - that night they will come for your loved ones! - all the women knew. Many who spent entire nights sitting frozen in this anticipation, or rushing about sobbing because their husband was half an hour late from work, were taken on the street! - simply no longer alive. And some are still afraid to talk about it.

This life, very realistically described, was the background of the complex action unfolding in the novel "Wanderers of the Night."

In Moscow, frozen in horror, under the vigilant gaze of all the windows of the Lubyanka, brightly lit all night, a small group of friends is preparing for the time when the oppressive tyranny collapses and the people, hungry in a wingless and terrible era, will need spiritual food most of all. Each of these dreamers is preparing for what's to come in their own way. A young architect, Zhenya Morgenstern, brings drawings of the Temple of the Sun of the World, which should be built on the Sparrow Hills. (By the way, on the very spot where the new University was built.) This temple becomes, as it were, a symbol of the entire group. It is crowned with a cross and has another emblem: a winged heart in a winged sun.

The leader, Indologist Leonid Fedorovich Glinsky (a tribute to Daniel’s passionate love for India), was the author of an interesting theory of the alternation of red and blue eras in the history of Russia. The colors - red and blue - are conventional, but this convention is understandable: blue as the primacy of the spiritual, mystical principle, red - the predominance of the material.

Perhaps the greatest loss associated with the death of the novel is Moscow, which lived in it. These were not “descriptions” of Moscow at that time, but rather the living, multifaceted, tragic city itself!

At the first performance of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony in the Great Hall of the Conservatory, the heroes of the novel met. We really were at this concert. The novel seemed to “describe” the Symphony, part by part its content was revealed, given by the brilliant composer through music. What a blessing that we were not familiar with Dmitry Dmitrievich! He would not have been able to refuse such a “decipherment”, because it was correct and the Fifth Symphony was written about how the human soul is crushed by the unbridled elements of Evil and the only thing left for the soul is prayer, with which the Symphony ends.

A number of heroes were the development of some aspect of the author’s personality: the Indologist Glinsky; poet Oleg Gorbov; archaeologist Sasha Gorbov, completely Andreev-like in love with nature. At the beginning of the novel, he returns from Trubchevsk to Moscow.

The novel, of course, came from the tradition of Dostoevsky, passionately loved by Daniil Andreev. This was not an imitation of Dostoevsky, but the problems of the novel were akin to the problems of the novels of the great writer, both in their Russianness and in the involvement of these problems in universal ones - about Good and Evil and their manifestation in the world.

Daniel always came to visit with a notebook of poems or a new chapter of a novel. He once told me: “The best thing about me is my creativity. So I go to my friends with my best.”

He was very shy and completely unable to "shine in society." Therefore, he could show his originality not directly, but as if by separating himself from himself, as an artist does.

The war found him working on “Wanderers of the Night.” He buried the manuscript in the ground and returned to poetry. He wrote a cycle of poems "Amber", dedicated to a real woman - her image is indirectly reflected in the novel. He worked on the poem "The Germans", but did not finish it - at the end of 1942 he was mobilized.

Philip Aleksandrovich Dobrov died two months before the start of the war. Elizaveta Mikhailovna - in the fall of 1942; Ekaterina Mikhailovna - in the middle of the war. Daniel, returning, did not find her.

Due to health reasons, he was a non-combatant private. At first he was at the headquarters of the military units being formed in Kubinka near Moscow; Later, in the winter of 1943, as part of the 196th Infantry Division, he walked along the ice route of Ladoga to the besieged, terrible Leningrad. But his poem “The Leningrad Apocalypse,” one of the chapters of “Russian Gods,” was written about this, and there is no need for me to retell it.

After Leningrad there were Shlisselburg and Sinyavino - names that are unforgettable for people who survived the war, as well as Yelnya, Yartsevo and many others...

* * *

Serving in the funeral team, Daniil Leonidovich buried the dead in mass graves and read Orthodox funeral prayers over them.

While dragging shells, he overstrained himself and ended up in the medical battalion. There he was left as an orderly; two people tried to save his life: the head of the hospital, Alexander Petrovich Tsaplin, and the doctor Nikolai Pavlovich Amurov.

In the last months of the war, specialists were recalled from the active army to work in the rear. The City Committee of Graphic Artists, of which he was a member as a type designer, called him from the front, and during the last war winter Daniil Leonidovich served in Moscow, at the Museum of Communications, as a graphic designer.

Of course, having the opportunity to be at home, he returned to work on the novel. When the manuscript of the novel was pulled out of the ground, it turned out that the inexperienced conspirator had buried it very poorly: it was written by hand, in ink, and the ink had blurred.

He started all over again, now on a typewriter that, by the way, once belonged to Leonid Andreev and accidentally remained in Moscow. The revised work became more significant before our eyes, from chapter to chapter.

At the end of the war, Daniil’s close friends, geographers Sergei Nikolaevich Matveev and his wife Maria Samoilovna Kaletskaya, concerned about our truly flagrant material disorder, found an unexpected form of income for him. (I, a member of the Union of Artists, could not find any work other than making copies.) Together with Sergei Nikolaevich, Daniil wrote a short book about Russian explorers of Mountainous Central Asia. On Matveev’s side there was the name of a respected scientist and specific material; on Andreev's part - literary processing of this material. The work was not creativity, it was honest, sincere, scientifically and literary qualified popularization.

The thin book was published in Geographgize, and in 1946 the following order followed: a book about Russian travelers in Africa. Daniil worked on this, also small, book with passionate enthusiasm, although he was torn between it and the novel.

He looked for material in the Lenin Library. One day a shining man came and told me that he had found information about an African river named after Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov. That Gumilyov was Daniil Andreev’s favorite poet, next to Lermontov, Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy and Blok, one need not write - this is clear from the poems, and it could not be otherwise.

A book about Russian travelers in Africa was written, typed, and the type was scattered. I don't know anything else about her.

* * *

In April 1947, a strange proposal was made to Daniil Leonidovich: to fly to Kharkov together with two or three companions and give a lecture there based on the material of his not yet published book about Russian travelers. What it was, we never knew. Most likely, it was a KGB staging from the very beginning.

Early in the morning of April 21, a passenger car arrived for Daniil, in which sat someone in civilian clothes, an impersonal appearance, and, also in civilian clothes, the “organizer” was kindly fussing around. I stood at the door and saw him off. On the way to the airfield he was arrested, and I received a telegram from Kharkov, supposedly signed by him, about his safe arrival.

They came for me on the evening of April 23. The search lasted 14 hours. Of course, they took the novel - they looked for it - and everything that was in the house was handwritten or typewritten. In the morning they took me away too - also in a passenger car.

To characterize the atmosphere of that time: of all the residents of the apartment, only one came out into the hallway when I was taken away, Anna Sergeevna Lomakina, who, like her husband, had served time in prison and was the mother of small children. She came up to me, kissed me and gave me some black bread and a few lumps of sugar. I gratefully remembered this - they didn’t act like that out of fear.

Daniil was taken to the Lubyanka many times for two or three days in the pre-war years: there was such a system of preventive arrests on Soviet holidays. There was also some kind of challenge at the front, which he briefly talked about.

Later, many relatives, friends, and acquaintances were arrested in the “Andreev case.” Then strangers were added to our “criminal group,” simply “the same.”

There were no heroes among us during the investigation. I think I was the worst of all; however, by signing “Article 206”, i.e. reading all the documents at the end of the investigation, I did not see any difference in the testimony. Why, against the background of heroic partisans, anti-fascists, and members of the Resistance, were many of the Russian intellectuals so weak? They don't like to talk about this.

The concept of decency and betrayal on such a scale disappears. Many of those who incriminated themselves and others during the investigation (and this was sometimes the same thing) deserve the greatest respect in the rest of their lives.

I see two main reasons. Fear that lasted for decades, which in advance undermined the will to resist, and specifically to resist the “authorities.” Most people, certainly worthy of the name of heroes, survived for a heroically short time and in extreme conditions compared to their ordinary life. For us, this soul-crushing fear was the norm; it was our daily life.

And the second reason is that we have never been political figures. There is a whole complex of character traits that should be inherent in a political figure - a revolutionary or a counter-revolutionary, it doesn’t matter - we didn’t have it.

We were the spiritual opposition to the era, with all our weakness and defenselessness. It was this opposition that was terrible for the all-powerful tyranny. I think that those who carried the weak lights of lit candles through the storm and bad weather, not always even realizing it, did their job.

And I had one more thing. I couldn’t forget that a Russian like me was sitting opposite me and interrogating me. This was used, I was deceived many times and caught in every provocation they could think of. And yet, even now, having realized how unacceptably wrong I was then, I cannot completely separate “us” from “them”. These are different sides of one huge national tragedy, and may the Lord help all of us who value Russia to understand and overcome this terrible knot.

And it must also be said: everyone who was taken in in later times knew that some voice would speak about them, that there were some kind of “human rights,” that family and friends would do everything in their power.

In those years they took it forever. Arrest meant darkness, silence and torment, and the thought of loved ones only increased despair tenfold.

Our investigation lasted 19 months: 13 months in Lubyanka, in an internal prison, and 6 in Lefortovo. The basis of the accusation was an anti-Soviet novel and poetry that several people read or listened to. But this was not enough for the prosecutor, and Article 58-8 of the Criminal Code was added to the charge, for Daniil Leonidovich “in 19” - preparation of a terrorist act, for me and several others “in 17” - assistance in preparing an assassination attempt. This nonsense - it was about an attempt on Stalin's life - was based on a completely conscious and extremely negative attitude towards Stalin, which has now become almost obligatory, but many have always had. It is not true that the Russian people, ready to bow before anyone, all bowed to Stalin; they bowed mainly to those who needed it in one way or another.

The realism of the novel played a weighing role. He was interrogated about the heroes as if they were living people, especially about Alexei Yuryevich Serpukhovsky, who differed from the rest of the group in his readiness for action, not dreams. It was Serpukhovskoy who had no prototype in Andreev’s circle. He was felt by him, caught in all the tragic haze of that life - he could not help but exist. Naturally, the investigative authorities could not understand the process of the writer’s creativity and stubbornly tried to find out who it was copied from. Moreover, emphasizing at the same time Andreev’s correct intuition and the vigilance of the “authorities,” a little later we were arrested by a group of people who could have been the heroes of the novel and our acquaintances. But they weren't.

We were looking for weapons for a long time. He wasn't there either. We were judged by the OSO-troika. This means that there was no trial and fellow traders did not see each other. We were called into offices one by one and the verdicts were “read out.” Daniil Andreev, as the main defendant in the case (now called “locomotive”), received 25 years in prison. Me and several other relatives and friends spent 25 years in maximum security camps. The rest - 10 years in maximum security camps.

It must be said that a 25-year sentence at that time was the ultimate punishment. For a short time in the Union, the death penalty was replaced by 25 years of imprisonment. That's the only reason we survived. A little earlier or a little later we would have been shot.

After the investigation, Daniil Leonidovich and I saw the act of burning the novel, poems, letters, diaries and letters of Leonid Andreev to his little son and the Dobrovs, whom he loved very much. On this “Act” Daniil Leonidovich wrote - I remember approximately: “I protest against the destruction of the novel and poems. I ask you to preserve it until my release. I ask you to transfer my father’s letters to the Literary Museum.” I think everything is lost.

Daniil Andreev went to Vladimir prison. Several people (including me) went to the Mordovian camps.

Sergei Nikolaevich Matveev died in the camp from a perforated ulcer. Alexandra Filippovna Dobrova died in the camp from cancer. Alexander Filippovich Dobrov died of tuberculosis in the Zubovo-Polyansky nursing home, having already been released and having no place to go in Moscow.

* * *

It may seem strange what I am about to say. When we met Daniel and were inseparable until his death, we told each other almost nothing about the investigation and conclusion. We walked parallel paths and understood each other perfectly, but there was no need to tell.

I know that the conditions of the Vladimir prison were very difficult. I also know that many of the prisoners there developed strong friendships that were very supportive.

At different times with Daniil Leonidovich there were: Vasily Vitalievich Shulgin; Academician Vasily Vasilievich Parin; historian Lev Lvovich Rakov; son of General Kutepov; Georgian Menshevik Simon Gogiberidze, who served 25 years in Vladimir; Japanese "war criminal" Tanaka-san. Art critic Vladimir Aleksandrovich Aleksandrov, who was released before everyone else, helped, at Daniil’s request, to find and put in order the grave of Alexandra Mikhailovna and her mother at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Of course, there were many more cellmates during the years I spent in prison, but I don’t remember their names.

At one time, the cell in the Vladimir prison, in which some of those I listed ended up together, received the comic name “academic”. Criminals were moved in with them. I don’t know the quantity, but the “quality” is easy to imagine: only real criminals receive a prison sentence under a criminal article.

The "academic" camera calmly greeted the aliens. V.V. Parin began to lecture them on physiology; L.L. Rakov - on military history, and D.L. Andreev wrote a short manual on versification and taught them to write poetry.

And these three prisoners - Parin, Rakov and Andreev - wrote a two-volume work "The Newest Plutarch" - grotesque fictional biographies of a wide variety of figures. L.L. Rakov provided this unique work with wonderful drawings.

And Daniil talked about the bad, for example, like this: “You know, handkerchiefs are a great thing! If you put one under you and the other on top, it seems that it’s not so cold.”

* * *

Now I must try to write about the most important thing, about what is the basis of Daniil Andreev’s work, including the source of the book “Russian Gods”.

This is difficult to do because you will have to talk about unprovable things. Those for whom the world is not exhausted by the visible and tangible (at most, logically provable), for whom another reality is no less a reality than the surrounding material one, will believe without evidence. If our world is not the only one, but there are others, it means that interpenetration is possible between them - what is there to prove?

Those for whom the Universe is limited to the visible, audible and tangible will not believe it.

I spoke about the moments in the life of Daniil Leonidovich when the “other” world powerfully burst into the “this” world. In prison, these breakthroughs became frequent, and gradually a system of the Universe arose before him and a categorical demand: to devote his poetic gift to teaching about this system.

Sometimes such states visited him in a dream, sometimes on the verge of sleep, sometimes in reality. In a dream, Lermontov, Dostoevsky and Blok took him to other worlds (from what he understood and told me) - such as they are now.

This is how his three main works were born: “Rose of the World”, “Russian Gods”, “Iron Mystery”. They are all about the same thing: about the structure of the universe and the struggle between Good and Evil that permeates this structure.

Daniil Andreev, not only in poetry and poems, but also in the prose “Rose of the World”, is a poet, not a philosopher. He is a poet in the ancient meaning of this concept, where thought, word, feeling, music (in his work - the musicality and rhythm of poetry) are fused into a single phenomenon. It was precisely this phenomenon that ancient cultures gave a name - poet.

The entire structure of his work, figurative, not logical, his entire attitude to the world as to an emerging myth is poetry, not philosophy.

Are distortions possible when conveying foreign material images and concepts of a series unfamiliar to us in human language? I think that they are not only possible, but inevitable. Human consciousness cannot help but introduce familiar concepts, logical conclusions, even just personal likes and dislikes. But, it seems to me, reading Andreev, you are convinced of his desire to be, as far as his gift allows, a pure transmitter of what he saw and heard.

He had no “technique”, no “system of meditation”. The only spiritual exercise was Orthodox prayer, and even prayer “in your own words.”

I think that the heart attack he suffered in 1954 and led to early death (in 1959) was a consequence of these conditions, was the payment of human flesh for the knowledge that was revealed to him. And no matter how monstrous my words may sound, no matter how infinitely sorry that Fate did not allow him at least a few more years to work, yet death is not too great and, perhaps, the purest retribution for the immersion in those worlds that befell him. share.

In "Rose of the World" he introduces the concept of "messenger" - an artist who creates a connection between worlds in his work. That's what he was.

Vasily Vasilyevich Parin, a Soviet academician, physiologist, atheist, who became very friendly with Daniil in prison, told me with surprise: “I had the impression that he did not write, in the sense of “composing”, but barely had time to write down what was pouring into him in a stream. ".

Daniel could not help but write. He told me that two years at the front were harder for him than ten years in prison. Not out of fear of death - death in prison was quite real and could be more painful than in war - but because of the impossibility of creativity.

At first he wrote in his cell on random scraps of paper. During the "shmons" these sheets of paper were taken away. He wrote again. The entire cell participated in preserving what was written, including “war criminals”, Germans and Japanese, who, not knowing the language, did not know what they were helping to hide - this was the solidarity of the prisoners.

After the death of Stalin and Beria, the prison authorities were replaced. The head of the regime was David Ivanovich Krot, who eased the regime, allowed correspondence, and allowed visits with relatives. My mother began to go to the Vladimir prison for visits that lasted an hour or two, and in the Mordovian camp I began to receive postcards and letters written in poetry, in the smallest handwriting, which probably completely exhausted the camp censor. But he gave the letters.

That's when the drafts of "The Rose of the World", "Russian Gods" and "The Iron Mystery" were written; “Amber”, “Ancient Memory”, “Forest Blood”, “Foothills”, “Moonstones” written before the arrest were restored; a cycle of poems "The Mouth of Life" was written. The excerpts from the poem “The Germans” that he remembered were included in the chapter “From a Small Room” in the book “Russian Gods”.

* * *

As time went. In 1956, the Khrushchev Commission to review the cases of political prisoners began its work. These commissions worked in all camps and prisons. I think millions of prisoners have been released. At the camp where I was, out of two thousand women, by the end of the Commission’s work, only eleven remained. One of the “Great Prison Routes”, the Moscow-Karaganda railway through Darkness in the summer of 1956 carried liberated people on all trains, and people stood along the tracks and waved their hands in greeting to these trains.

I was released at the very end of work and in a very casual manner: the guard entered the barracks and said: “Andreeva, pack your things, you will be released tomorrow.”

I went out into the golden Mordovian forest. On August 15 I was in Moscow, on August 25, 1956 - on my first date with my husband in Vladimir.

We met in a tiny room. He was already waiting for me, he was brought earlier. He was very thin, gray-haired, his head was not shaved, as prisoners were supposed to do. There is nothing to say about joy - he picked me up in his arms.

The matron looked at us, full of sincere sentimental feelings, and did not see how Daniel, under the table that separated us, handed me a quarter of a notebook with poems, and I hid it in my dress.

The commission reduced his sentence from 25 to 10 years. There were still eight months left, but that was not what was scary, but the fact that upon release at the end of the term, the criminal record was not expunged, which meant a refusal of registration in Moscow. And he was dying, and everyone knew it. And he knew.

This decision of the Commission was caused by his own application submitted to this Commission. The meaning was this: “I did not intend to kill anyone, in this part I ask you to reconsider my case. But until there is freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the Soviet Union, I ask you not to consider me a completely Soviet person.” It was clear that it was necessary to work for another review of the case, but first of all it was necessary to save the draft manuscripts created in prison. Realizing that he would be brought to Moscow for revision, we agreed that he would leave all the manuscripts in prison. Having learned that he was brought to Lubyanka, I went to Vladimir as if on a date. I was brought to the head of the regime, David Ivanovich, whom I mentioned. He told me that Daniil Leonidovich was taken to Moscow, and then gave me a bag of things left by Daniil. On the bus, on the way to Moscow, I was already snatching notebooks with drafts of poems and “Roses of the World” from my bag. There was a deliberate confusion: slippers, books, notebooks, a shirt, etc.