The wonderful world of childhood in the works of Vsevolod Nestaiko. Vsevolod Nestaiko - The Extraordinary Adventures of Robinson Corn
Real friends are like brothers
Folk wisdom
The Ukrainian writer Vsevolod Nestaiko can be called a real wizard of the literary word. He himself believes that the Great Patriotic War prevented him from being a child. That’s why I became a children’s writer, so that in my works I could return to childhood, play out the game, and enjoy it.
The story "Toreadors from Vasyukovka" is also about a game, fiction, fantasy. The romance of daily adventures has so captured two friends Ivan Ren and Pavel Zavgorodniy that sometimes they lose the sense of the line between reality and the imaginary world they themselves created.
Already from the first lines of the story you begin to understand: you have to laugh. And laugh a lot and have fun. The writer depicted such an unusual flavor of rural childhood. The adventures of the story's heroes begin in childhood. The boy squeaked his own name incorrectly. So they nicknamed him Java for life. But there is no time to be upset about this, because so many things arise that there is not enough time to think about what they call you. And there is also a friend of Pavlush who will help out and help him come up with something.
Java and Pavlusha are not just inventors. These are two “ticking time bombs”, although there is no evil intent in their actions, only good intentions. After all, the guys wanted to do a good deed when they built the first metro line in Vasyukivtsi. The rescue of the little dog Sobakevich from an abandoned well can generally be called a feat without any jokes: not everyone will go down to the bottom of a dilapidated well. True, the energy of the guys is overflowing. Therefore, even good deeds often turn into comical situations that cause laughter.
V. Nestaiko’s story “Toreadors from Vasyukovka” amazes with the dynamism of events. Before one adventure with its main characters ends, another one begins. And every time the dreamers Yava and Pavlusha, who confused fiction with reality, have to extricate themselves from comic situations.
They enthusiastically imagine how such an impressive spectacle as a bullfight will take place for the first time in the history of Vasyukovka. People from all over Ukraine will come to see bullfighters Ivan Ren and Pavel Zavgorodniy, they will be shown on TV. But what can you do if the cow Contribution does not understand the good intentions of the brave bullfighters and drives them into the mud.
Brave Java and Pavlusha are ready to save the rural inventor and craftsman Faradeyovich. But this story also ends comically: a bomb does not explode, but a clay jug. The guys are once again in trouble. Instead of a reward, they have to eliminate traces of their presence in Faradejovich's house.
It’s in vain that neither their relatives nor fellow villagers understand the good intentions of the “toreadors”. But friends do not perceive other people's irony. "Here are the guys! Eagles! Falcons! Gangsters, not guys!" - Grandfather Salivon says about them. Java and Pavlusha take their grandfather’s words “at face value.” They agree that everyone will talk about them like that, so that fame will thunder throughout Vasyukivka. Even though their fame is already booming.
The exciting plot of the story is structured in such a way that the denouement of the adventure occurs unexpectedly when you are not expecting it. Perhaps this happens because “life is a confusing and complex thing.” Who can know in advance that a pig will fall into an underground passage and destroy the subway? Is there anything creepy about a forest bird? And the lecturer, who was giving a lecture on raising children in a family, would inadvertently fall off the stage and even pour water from a carafe on himself.
Maybe it is precisely thanks to this confusion of life that you begin to understand who your real friend is. Apparently, it was not without reason that the author of the story used such a funny episode to tell Pavlusha about how he became friends with Yavya. Because it is in unexpected situations that a person’s character is best revealed.
Through this cheerful Pavlushya's story, the writer revealed the harsh reality: the exemplary Styopa not only let the children overwhelm his peer with watermelons, but also left him to the mercy of fate, and the inventor Java, who was not even Pavlushi's friend, was not afraid of the formidable grandfather Salivon, and became a savior.
Vsevolod Nestaiko’s story about the “toreadors” from Vasyukovka from the first page to the last is permeated with witty humor. Each adventure of the colorful rural childhood of two friends is written in bright, lively language. In it, the words do not run wild, as happened in Yavi and Pavlushi during the performance, which they failed, but make us sympathize with the guys, then laugh with him, then think, we don’t do the same things as they do.
In 1979, the International Council for Children's and Youth Literature rightly included Vsevolod Nestaiko's story in a special honorary list of G.-H. Andersen as one of the outstanding works of children's literature. This story remains one of the best in Ukrainian literature today.
Almost all schoolchildren of the Soviet era were familiar with his books, and when they grew up, they re-read them many times, experiencing a nagging feeling of the warmth of a bygone childhood... He became an undisputed classic of modern Ukrainian children's literature. The hero of our article is Vsevolod Nestaiko, whose books are still adored not only in Ukraine, but also far beyond its borders, despite the fact that the writer left this world in 2014.
About childhood and parents
The writer’s life journey began in the city of Berdichev. It was there in 1930, on January 30, that little Vsevolod was born. Together with a friend (Vitasik Dyachenko), who lived next door, they loved to read. They especially loved Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Jack London, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov and others. They both had one dream - to become a long-distance sailor. But Nestaiko didn’t succeed - he couldn’t distinguish some colors. But as for Vitasik, he later became a captain.
Vsevolod's father, Zinovy, studied at the Buchat city gymnasium. When World War I began, it became the Ukrainian Galician Army. By the will of fate, I ended up in one of the camps in Poland. After his release, he went to work at a sugar production plant in the city of Proskurov (now Khmelnitsky). In 1933, he was arrested and sent to a concentration camp, where he died that same year.
Vsevolod's mother was a teacher of Russian language and literature. Having survived the death of her husband, she moved with her son to Kyiv. After the Nazis came to the city, she opened an underground school. When the time came, she sent her son to a Ukrainian school. And when he finished fourth grade, World War II began. For obvious reasons, he could not continue his studies at school, and his mother taught him the entire 5th grade course. After Kyiv was liberated, Nestaiko went to the sixth. While studying in the 8th grade, I simultaneously mastered the ninth grade program on my own and then, having passed the material externally, moved to the tenth. Upon graduating from school, Nestaiko received a silver medal (there was only one B in the certificate - in physics).
Student life and career
Nestaiko Vsevolod Zinovievich after school became a student at the Kyiv State University named after T. G. Shevchenko. During his studies, he worked at the Kiev Drama Theater as an extra. Simultaneously with his studies at the university, Vsevolod Nestaiko (his biography has now finally turned in a creative direction) became an employee of the Dnipro magazine. And then he worked for five years as a literary editor and proofreader in the children's magazine Barvinok.
As Vsevolod Nestaiko himself admitted (the writer’s stories quickly find the key to the heart of their reader), the main role in shaping him as a writer was played by the head of the magazine’s department, Irina Isaevna Shkarovskaya. Also, the daughter of another famous Ukrainian writer, Ostap Vyshny, worked at Barvinka. This was followed by the Molod publishing house. Since 1956, he became head. editor at Veselka, where he worked until 1987. During this period, he joined the CPSU, where he was a member for thirteen years and left it simultaneously with
Vsevolod Nestaiko: books
The future cult Ukrainian writer and storyteller began his writing career at the age of eight. The story of a brave hunter chasing a Bengal tiger in Africa greatly amused his mother. He began publishing his early stories in Periwinkle and Pioneer. And in 1956, the writer’s first book, “Shurka and Shurko,” was published, which immediately won the hearts of readers.
But the book “In the Land of Sunny Bunnies” (1959) brought real popularity to the author. Anatoly Kostetsky, Vsevolod’s friend (also a children’s writer), loved to remember the birth of this fairy tale. One clear morning, Vsevolod dreamed that he was sitting on the tip of the writer’s nose and tickling his cheeks with a brush, carefully bringing out freckles there. Having woken up, Nestaiko felt an unusual surge of happiness and joy and immediately began writing a good story about these same bunnies.
In total, Vsevolod Nestaiko (the biography of the writer beloved by millions of readers deserves a separate book) during his creative career wrote a huge number of children's stories, fairy tales and even plays. The most famous are “In the Land of Sunny Bunnies”, “Toreadors from Vasyukovka”, “Incredible Adventures in a Forest School”, “Five with a Ponytail”, “Mysterious Voice Behind”, “The Secret of the Old Clown” and others. All these stories have earned the boundless love of young readers and their parents, and the author confidently takes an honorable first place in the list of “Favorite children’s writers of Ukraine.”
Everyone's favorite book
It is perhaps impossible, when studying the writer’s life, not to dwell on the book, or rather the trilogy, after the release of which the name Vsevolod Nestaiko (the writer’s biography was now of interest to fans as much as his books) remains on the lips of many generations to this day.
The idea of writing this story came to the writer after the illustrator who designed his books told the story of how two schoolchildren got lost in the corn thickets and found their way out only thanks to the village radio. The story, with some changes, was played out in the story, which was called “The Adventures of Robinson Kukuruzo.”
The first part has undergone significant revision by the author. Readers of the Russian translation of the book became acquainted with it only after the new edition. However, later in the novel there were references to deleted scenes (for example, about a trip with the class on an excursion to Kyiv, as well as the burial of the pharaoh in a pyramid of watermelons).
In 2004, the children's publishing house "A-BA-BA-GA-LA-MA-GA" released the last version of the novel-trilogy. On the advice of Ivan Malkovich, Vsevolod Nestaiko edited some ideological points that will be incomprehensible to the current young generation, while adding several funny episodes and plots.
Screen adaptation
Everyone’s favorite book also received its place under the “cinematic sun”: in 1965, a Kharkov television studio released a short film based on the first chapter of the novel. The humorous television film enjoyed incredible popularity, not only in the territory of the former USSR, but also far abroad. And even participated in international film festivals.
But as for the book itself, it is included in the modern Ukrainian school curriculum. And it continues to be a success among reading children, not to mention parents and grandparents...
Return to childhood
We always want to plunge into this bright and magical time, with the taste of mother’s pies and grandmother’s jam. Run through the puddles again. Or, tracking down your neighbor (after all, he is definitely a foreign spy!), get lost in the corn... Return again to where so many discoveries and adventures awaited us... It is this opportunity that Vsevolod Nestaiko gives us. His biography cannot “boast” of a cloudless and happy childhood, but every time the author gladly takes us back there on the pages of his books, generously gifting us with magical, funny and at the same time touching stories.
Vsevolod Zinovievich Nestaiko is a Ukrainian children's writer. His works are characterized by a humorous play on names and situations.
Father, Zinovy Nestaiko, was born in Chernelitsa. He graduated from high school in the city of Buchach. During the First World War he was a “Sich rifleman” in the Austrian army. He fought in the ranks of the Ukrainian Galician Army and ended up in a Polish prisoner camp. He worked in Proskurov (now Khmelnitsky) at a sugar factory. In 1930 or 1933 he was arrested and died in the camps.
Nestaiko’s mother taught Russian language and literature. After the death of his father in the 30s, he moved with his son to Kyiv, where during the Nazi occupation he organized a small underground school. Grandfather, oh. Denis Nestaiko is a long-term dean and rector (UGCC) of the city of Buchach, a famous Ukrainian public figure of the Buchatsky district. The writer was in Buchach several times and donated personal belongings of his relatives to the Buchatsky Regional Museum of Local Lore.
As a child, Nestaiko became interested in the works of Nikolai Trublaini, Jack London, Jules Verne and Boris Zhitkov.
Nestaiko finishes ten years of general secondary school with one B in his report card, with a silver medal. Due to the circumstances of terror and war, I did not study in the fifth and ninth grades. The ninth grade course was completed independently in two months.
After school he enters the Slavic department of the Philological University of Kyiv State University. Taras Shevchenko and completes his studies in 1952. He worked in the editorial offices of the magazines “Dnipro”, “Barvinok”, and the publishing houses “Molod”. From 1956 to 1987 he was the head of the editorial office at the Veselka publishing house.
For the fairy tale “Extraordinary Adventures in a Forest School,” Vsevolod Nestaiko was awarded the Prize named after him in 1982. Lesya Ukrainka. The works of V. Nestaiko have been translated into many languages of the world, including Russian; the films “Unit with Deception”, “Miracles in Garbuzyany”, and the short film “Toreadors from Vasyukovka” were based on his stories and short stories.
In 1979, his trilogy “Toreadors from Vasyukovka” was included in the Honorary List named after him by the International Council for Children’s and Youth Literature. Andersen as one of the most outstanding works of world literature for children.
Over fifty years of creativity, V. Nestaiko published about thirty books of stories, fairy tales, novellas and plays.
Vsevolod Nestaiko published his first story for children in the magazine “Barvinok”. Also published in Pioneer. The first book “Shurka and Shurko” (Ukrainian: “Shurka and Shurko”) was published in 1956.
At the beginning of 2000, he published his new fairy tale “Blacksmiths of Happiness, or New Year's Detective” (Ukrainian: “Kovali Shchastya, or New Year’s Detective”) in “Perivinka”.
Many modern Ukrainian writers speak favorably of the work of Vsevolod Nestaiko and consider him a classic and a master of words.
According to sociological surveys conducted in 1990-1992 by the State Library for Children and the Ministry of Culture, the works of Vsevolod Nestaiko were recognized as leaders of reader interest.
Vsevolod Nestaiko (born 1930)
Vsevolod Zinovievich Nestaiko was born on January 30, 1930. Berdichev in the Zhitomir region in the family of an employee. When Vsevolod was three years old, along with other Sich Streltsy, his father died. It was terrible 1933 and the family, fleeing hunger, moved to relatives in Kyiv. Therefore, Vsevolod Nestaiko lived his entire adult life in Kyiv. As the writer himself writes: “And wherever I happen to visit, even on the most interesting trip, when I return to Kyiv, my heart beats with the joyful excitement of meeting my hometown.”
V. Nestaiko’s mother was a teacher, and the apartment was located on the premises of the school where she taught. "On the one side - It was fun - live at school, and on the other hand... I envied my friends, whom our teacher Lina Mitrofanovna wrote in her diary: “Tomorrow come with your parents!” They didn’t write anything in my diary: my mother was nearby,”- the writer recalls.
Vsevolod’s life in elementary school was long and carefree. And it ended suddenly one day - the Patriotic War began. The guy was eleven years old at the time. Vsevolod Nestaiko spent two years with his mother in the terrible Kyiv occupation. Mom organized underground training in her room so that students would not forget the knowledge they had previously acquired. These lessons helped - Vsevolod was immediately accepted into the sixth grade. This was when Kyiv was still in ruins. The guy immediately reached out to literature. And when the time came to choose a profession, I decided that it would only be literature.
After graduating from the ten-year school, in 1947, the future writer entered the Slavic department of the Faculty of Philology of Kyiv University.
The post-war years of Vsevolod Nestaiko were not easy and hungry, but these were the years of youth and studenthood that will be remembered for a lifetime. V. Nestaiko worked in the editorial offices of the magazines “Dnepr”, “Barvinok”, and in the publishing house “Molodezh”. From 1956 to 1987 Head of the editorial office at the Raduga publishing house.
When Vsevolod Nestaiko was a little boy, he really wanted to grow up and become big and mature. “Maybe because I was. Really short, the smallest in the class. Small, thin and also red-haired. Like red fire. They teased me: “The sea is burning!”, “Fire brigade”. And in the class they also called me " Red African hedgehog"- the writer recalls. and, in order to grow up faster, Vsevolod stood in the rain for hours and went to bed at seven. So in his sleep and impatience, V. Nestaiko did not even notice how he suddenly grew to almost two meters and ceased to be red. "and suddenly I realized that I was in no hurry to grow up, that my childhood - the most beautiful, happiest time of human life. And so I wanted to go back! Back - to childhood. And time has no way back"- he admits.
And yet Vsevolod Zinovievich Nestaiko found this road. And it went through imagination and fantasy. He began to mentally return to childhood - he began to write funny and wise books for children. Perhaps he inherited an unusual sense of humor from his maternal grandfather Ivan Semenovich Dovganyuk. Of course, without talent, without kindness and love for children, it is impossible to become a children's writer. Vsevolod Nestaiko is a children's writer by the grace of God. He always conducts a conversation with his readers with sincere trust, without imposing his own assessments, with a cheerful, ironic smiling look at his heroes and their inept actions, thus affirming goodness, honesty, openness and condemning evil, cowardice, and envy.
Vsevolod Nestaiko began publishing his first stories for children in the magazines "Periwinkle" and "Pioneria". The first book, “Shurka and Shurka,” was published in 1956. He showed his almost fifty-year journey in children's literature by publishing about thirty books of stories, fairy tales, novellas and plays. The most famous of them are “In the Land of Sunny Bunnies” (1959), “Sputnik LIRA-3” (1960), “Cosmo-Natka” (1963), “Robinson Kukuruzo” (1964), “Stranger from Vasyukivka” (1973), "Unit with deception" (1976), "Extraordinary Adventures in a Forest School" (1981), "The Riddle of the Old Clown" (1982), "Five with a Ponytail" (1985), "Stranger from the Land of Sunny Bunnies" (1988), " The investigation continues", "The Mysterious Voice Behind" (1990), "The Incredible Detectives" (1995) and other outstanding works.
Books by V. 3. Nestaiko have been translated into twenty languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Slovak and the like. His books have been published in Russia thirteen times.
Films based on the works of Vsevolod Nestaiko have received international awards. The television film "The Stranger from Vasyukivka" received the Grand Prix at the international festival in Munich (1968), and the main prize at the International festival in Alexandria (Australia) (1969). The film "Unit with Deception" was awarded at the All-Union Film Festival in Kyiv (1984), awarded a special prize at the international film festival in Gabrovo (Bulgaria, 1985).
Vsevolod Nestaiko is a laureate of the Lesya Ukrainsky Literary Prize (for the fairy tale "Extraordinary Adventures in a Forest School"), the Nikolai Trublaini Prize (for the fairy tale "Stranger from the Land of Sunny Bunnies"), the Alexander Kopylenko Prize (for the fairy tale "Adventures" hedgehog Kolka Kolyuchka and his faithful friend and classmate bunny Kosi Wuhan), at the first All-Union competition for painting a book for children for the story in the stories “Five with a Ponytail,” he was awarded second prize. In 1979, by decision of the International Council for Children's and Youth Literature, the trilogy "The Stranger from Vasyukivka" was included in the Special Honorary List of G. K. Andersen as one of the greatest works of modern children's literature.
The main theme of V. Nestaiko’s works is the life of schoolchildren and the formation of the spiritual world of children. Being an experienced writer, Vsevolod Zinovievich said that the Great Patriotic War prevented him from being a child, so he became a children's writer in order to return to childhood in his works, to finish playing, to laugh. It should be sincerely admitted that the writer succeeds in this so well that no reader can remain indifferent to his stories, and his works have been translated into different languages and are popular in other countries.
The trilogy (all three works are about the adventures of the same heroes) “The Stranger from Vasyukivka”, “The Stranger from Apartment Thirteen” and “The Mystery of the Three Unknowns” tells about the funny adventures of two friends - Java Ren and Pavlusha Zavgorodniy. This is a work about true friendship and mutual assistance, loyalty and dedication, the ability to find a way out of difficult situations without losing a sense of humor and optimism.
9 GREAT FALSE STUDENTS Alexander Pushkin Many people know that the famous Russian poet was a bad student. Pushkin's biography has been studied very carefully, including his period of study at the gymnasium. Young Alexander knew absolutely nothing about mathematics and constantly received bad marks in this subject. However, this did not stop him from becoming the best in writing and making his name a symbol of classical Russian literature. Perhaps it is precisely because of such facts in the biographies of famous personalities that it is generally accepted that people in the humanities are simply not destined to understand mathematics. Vladimir Mayakovsky Already at the age of 11, a boy with a rebel nature got into a revolutionary circle, abandoned his lessons and dropped out of school in the 5th grade. The time he stayed at school was not easy for teachers - in his youth, the brilliant poet was a terrible tomboy. This character is reflected in literature - everyone knows Mayakovsky’s slightly harsh style with incredible energy. So, one more conclusion: bad behavior at school will also not be an obstacle to a great future. Joseph Brodsky Joseph Brodsky was an inveterate loser and a hooligan. He despised the Soviet school system, refused to answer in class with such pronounced condescension towards the teachers that his parents were not surprised at the bad grades. This behavior appeared already in the 5th grade. As he grew older, the young man did not betray himself - he skipped classes, received annual bad marks in physics, chemistry, mathematics and English. It’s hard to believe that after such behavior one can become a Nobel laureate in literature “for comprehensive creativity, imbued with clarity of thought and passion of poetry.” Honore de Balzac Honore had a very difficult relationship with his mother; he lived in a boarding school and practically did not see his family. Disappointed with everything, he decided that there was no point in trying hard in his studies and was absolutely indifferent to his studies. During lessons, he looked out the window, did not pay attention to the teachers’ lectures, and answered all questions incomprehensibly. As punishment, his teachers sent him to a cold closet under the stairs so that he could think about his behavior. This happened so often that soon Honore even fell in love with this opportunity for solitude. Who knows, maybe this is what influenced the creative activity of the famous French writer. Winston Churchill The famous statesman was considered one of the stupidest students in his class. Due to poor academic performance, Winston was even suspended from studying Latin and Ancient Greek. One of the reasons for the low grades is the boy’s absolute reluctance to attend classes. “School has nothing to do with education. This is an institution of control, where children are instilled with basic social skills” - these words of Churchill convey his attitude about the school. If the teachers had known that in the future Winston would receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, no one would have believed it - it was so difficult to study with him. Bill Gates One of the richest people on the planet, Bill Gates, was also a loser! His parents did everything they could to change his attitude towards studying - once they even offered to pay the boy for every A grade. However, this could not be Bill's motivation: the only thing that attracted him was books. Interestingly, science fiction works accessible to every reader inspired Gates to make great discoveries. Leo Tolstoy Leo Tolstoy studied with governesses at home. He was not familiar with criticism and restrictions - the boy was constantly given concessions and indulgences. Naturally, with such an attitude, Leo did not want to study at all - why, if you can do other, more interesting things, and there will be little demand from you. At the university, Tolstoy remained in the second year because of bad marks in history and German, and from the second year he dropped out of his own free will. The writer never received an education diploma, which did not become an obstacle to his implementation in the literary field. Dmitry Mendeleev Dmitry Mendeleev was a notorious hooligan: he often fought with his peers, constantly skipped classes and was insolent to teachers. He practically did not do his homework and constantly lied to his mother about his grades. Such behavior could only be stopped by something out of the ordinary, and that’s what happened. Only when faced with the threat of expulsion from the gymnasium did Mendeleev come to his senses. His friends, brilliantly educated Decembrists, helped him. And after some time, the future scientist came to his senses and improved all his subjects, improving his certificate. Anton Chekhov It is simply impossible to imagine that the most intelligent of Russian writers stayed in school for a second year twice. But poor grades in arithmetic, geography and Greek took their toll. And the most interesting thing is that in Russian literature he never had grades higher than four! The writer's talent manifested itself already at the university, when, upon entering the medical faculty, Chekhov began writing stories and discovered himself in a completely new capacity.
