A brief report on the life and work of Paustovsky. Interesting facts from the life of Paustovsky

Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky(May 19 (31), Moscow - July 14, Moscow) - Russian Soviet writer, classic of Russian literature. Member of the Writers' Union of the USSR. K. Paustovsky's books have been repeatedly translated into many languages ​​of the world. In the second half of the 20th century, his novels and short stories were included in the Russian literature curriculum for middle classes in Russian schools as one of the plot and stylistic examples of landscape and lyrical prose.

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Biography

His autobiographical “Tale of Life” in two volumes, 6 books in total, can help to understand the origins and development of K. G. Paustovsky’s work. The first book “Distant Years” is dedicated to the writer’s childhood there.

My whole life from early childhood to 1921 is described in three books - “Distant Years”, “Restless Youth” and “The Beginning of an Unknown Century”. All these books form parts of my autobiographical “Tale of Life”...

Origin and education

Konstantin Paustovsky was born into the family of railway statistician Georgy Maksimovich Paustovsky, who had Ukrainian-Polish-Turkish roots and lived in Granatny Lane in Moscow. He was baptized in the Church of St. George in Vspolye. The entry in the church register contains information about his parents: “...the father is a retired non-commissioned officer of the second category from volunteers, from the bourgeoisie of the Kyiv province, Vasilkovsky district, Georgy Maksimovich Paustovsky and his legal wife Maria Grigorievna, both Orthodox people”.

The writer’s pedigree on his father’s side is connected with the name of Hetman P.K. Sagaidachny, although he did not attach much importance to this: “My father laughed at his “hetman origin” and liked to say that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers plowed the land and were the most ordinary, patient grain growers...” The writer’s grandfather was a Cossack, had the experience of being a Chumakov, who transported goods from Crimea with his comrades deep into Ukrainian territory, and introduced young Kostya to Ukrainian folklore, Chumatsky, Cossack songs and stories, of which the most memorable was the romantic and tragic story of a former rural blacksmith that touched him, and then the blind lyre player Ostap, who lost his sight from the blow of a cruel nobleman, a rival who stood in the way of his love for a beautiful noble lady, who then died, unable to bear the separation from Ostap and his torment.

Before becoming a Chumak, the writer’s paternal grandfather served in the army under Nicholas I, was captured in Turkish captivity during one of the Russian-Turkish wars and brought from there his stern Turkish wife Fatma, who was baptized in Russia with the name Honorata, so that The writer's father's Ukrainian-Cossack blood is mixed with Turkish. The father is portrayed in the story “Distant Years” as a not very practical man of a freedom-loving revolutionary-romantic type and an atheist, which irritated his mother-in-law, another grandmother of the future writer.

The writer’s maternal grandmother, Vikentia Ivanovna, who lived in Cherkassy, ​​was Polish, a zealous Catholic, who took her preschool-age grandson, with his father’s disapproval, to worship Catholic shrines in the then Russian part of Poland, and the impressions from their visit and the people met there also deeply sank into the writer's soul. My grandmother always wore mourning after the defeat of the Polish uprising of 1863, as she sympathized with the idea of ​​freedom for Poland: “We were sure that during the uprising, my grandmother’s fiance was killed - some proud Polish rebel, not at all like my grandmother’s gloomy husband, and my grandfather, a former notary in the city of Cherkassy.”. After the defeat of the Poles by the government forces of the Russian Empire, active supporters of Polish liberation felt hostility towards the oppressors, and on a Catholic pilgrimage, the grandmother forbade the boy to speak Russian, while he spoke Polish only to a minimal extent. The boy was also frightened by the religious frenzy of other Catholic pilgrims, and he alone did not fulfill the required rituals, which his grandmother explained by the bad influence of his father, an atheist. The Polish grandmother is portrayed as strict, but kind and attentive. Her husband, the writer’s second grandfather, was a taciturn man who lived alone in his room on the mezzanine and his grandchildren’s communication with him was not noted by the author of the story as a significant factor influencing him, unlike communication with the other two members of that family - a young, beautiful , the cheerful, impetuous and musically gifted Aunt Nadya, who died early, and her older brother, the adventurer Uncle Yuzy - Joseph Grigorievich. This uncle received a military education and, having the character of a tireless traveler, a never-despairing unsuccessful entrepreneur, a restless person and an adventurer, disappeared from his parents’ home for a long time and unexpectedly returned to it from the farthest corners of the Russian Empire and the rest of the world, for example, from the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway or by participating in the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa on the side of the small Boers, who staunchly resisted the British conquerors, as the liberal-minded Russian public, which sympathized with these descendants of Dutch settlers, believed at the time. On his last visit to Kyiv, which occurred during the armed uprising that took place there during the First Russian Revolution of 1905-07. , he unexpectedly got involved in events, organizing the previously unsuccessful shooting of rebel artillerymen at government buildings and, after the defeat of the uprising, he was forced to emigrate for the rest of his life to the countries of the Far East. All these people and events influenced the personality and work of the writer.

The writer's parental family had four children. Konstantin Paustovsky had two older brothers (Boris and Vadim) and a sister Galina.

After the breakup of the family (autumn 1908), he lived for several months with his uncle, Nikolai Grigorievich Vysochansky, in Bryansk and studied at the Bryansk gymnasium.

In the fall of 1909, he returned to Kyiv and, having recovered at the Alexander Gymnasium (with the assistance of its teachers), began an independent life, earning money by tutoring. After some time, the future writer settled with his grandmother, Vikentia Ivanovna Vysochanskaya, who moved to Kyiv from Cherkassy. Here, in a small outbuilding on Lukyanovka, high school student Paustovsky wrote his first stories, which were published in Kyiv magazines. After graduating from high school in 1912, he entered the Imperial University of St. Vladimir in Kyiv to the Faculty of History and Philology, where he studied for two years.

In total, Konstantin Paustovsky, “a Muscovite by birth and a Kievite by heart,” lived in Ukraine for more than twenty years. It was here that he established himself as a journalist and writer, as he admitted more than once in his autobiographical prose. In the preface to the Ukrainian edition of “Gold of Troyanda” (Russian: “Golden Rose”) In 1957 he wrote:

In the books of almost every writer, the image of his native land, with its endless sky and silence of fields, with its thoughtful forests and the language of the people, shines through, as if through a light sunny haze. Overall, I was lucky. I grew up in Ukraine. I am grateful to her lyricism in many aspects of my prose. I carried the image of Ukraine in my heart for many years.

World War I and Civil War

After both of his brothers died on the same day on different fronts, Paustovsky returned to Moscow to his mother and sister, but after some time he left there. During this period, he worked at the Bryansk Metallurgical Plant in Yekaterinoslav, at the Novorossiysk Metallurgical Plant in Yuzovka, at a boiler plant in Taganrog, and from the fall of 1916 in a fishing cooperative on the Sea of ​​Azov. After the start of the February Revolution, he left for Moscow, where he worked as a reporter for newspapers. In Moscow, he witnessed the events of 1917-1919 associated with the October Revolution.

In 1932, Konstantin Paustovsky visited Petrozavodsk, working on the history of the Onega plant (the topic was suggested by A. M. Gorky). The result of the trip was the stories “The Fate of Charles Lonseville” and “Lake Front” and a long essay “The Onega Plant”. Impressions from a trip to the north of the country also formed the basis for the essays “The Country Beyond Onega” and “Murmansk”.

Having traveled around the north-west of the country, visiting Novgorod, Staraya Russa, Pskov, Mikhailovskoye, Paustovsky wrote the essay “Mikhailovsky Groves”, published in the magazine “Krasnaya Nov” (No. 7, 1938).

By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On rewarding Soviet writers” dated January 31, 1939, K. G. Paustovsky was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (“For outstanding successes and achievements in the development of Soviet fiction”).

Period of the Great Patriotic War

In mid-August, Konstantin Paustovsky returned to Moscow and was left to work in the TASS apparatus. Soon, at the request of the Committee for Arts, he was released from service to work on a new play for the Moscow Art Theater and evacuated with his family to Alma-Ata, where he worked on the play “Until the Heart Stops,” the novel “Smoke of the Fatherland,” and wrote a number of stories. The production of the play was prepared by the Moscow Chamber Theater under the direction of A. Ya. Tairov, evacuated to Barnaul. While working with the theater staff, Paustovsky spent some time (winter 1942 and early spring 1943) in Barnaul and Belokurikha. He called this period of his life “Barnaul months”. The premiere of the play “Until the Heart Stops,” dedicated to the fight against fascism, took place in Barnaul on April 4, 1943.

World recognition

In the 1950s, Paustovsky lived in Moscow and Tarusa-on-Oka. He became one of the compilers of the most important collective collections of the democratic movement during the Thaw, “Literary Moscow” (1956) and “Tarussky Pages” (1961). For more than ten years he led a prose seminar in, and was the head of the department of literary excellence. Among the students at Paustovsky’s seminar were: Inna Goff, Vladimir Tendryakov, Grigory Baklanov, Yuri Bondarev, Yuri Trifonov, Boris Balter, Ivan Panteleev. In her book “Transformations” Inna Goff wrote about K. G. Paustovsky:

I think about him often. Yes, he had a rare talent as a Teacher. It is no coincidence that there are many teachers among his passionate fans. He knew how to create a special, mysteriously beautiful atmosphere of creativity - this is precisely the lofty word I want to use here.

In the mid-1950s, Paustovsky gained worldwide recognition. Having the opportunity to travel around Europe, he visited Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Turkey, Greece, Sweden, Italy and other countries. Setting off on a cruise around Europe in 1956, he visited Istanbul, Athens, Naples, Rome, Paris, Rotterdam, Stockholm. At the invitation of Bulgarian writers, K. Paustovsky visited Bulgaria in 1959. In 1965, he lived for some time on the island. Capri. In the same 1965, he was one of the likely candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was eventually awarded to Mikhail Sholokhov. In the book “Lexicon of Russian Literature of the 20th Century,” written by the famous German Slavist Wolfgang Kazak, it is said about this: “The planned presentation of the Nobel Prize to K. Paustovsky in 1965 did not take place, as the Soviet authorities began to threaten Sweden with economic sanctions. And thus, instead of him, the major Soviet literary functionary M. Sholokhov was awarded.” .

K. G. Paustovsky was among Marlene Dietrich’s favorite writers. In her book “Reflections” (chapter “Paustovsky”) she described their meeting, which took place in 1964 during her speech at the Central House of Writers:

• “...Once I read the story “Telegram” by Paustovsky. (It was a book where, next to the Russian text, there was an English translation.) He made such an impression on me that I could no longer forget either the story or the name of the writer, whom I had never heard of. I have not been able to find other books by this amazing writer. When I came on tour to Russia, at the Moscow airport I asked about Paustovsky. Hundreds of journalists gathered here, they didn’t ask stupid questions that they usually annoyed me with in other countries. Their questions were very interesting. Our conversation lasted more than an hour. When we approached my hotel, I already knew everything about Paustovsky. He was sick at the time and was in the hospital. Later I read both volumes of “The Tale of Life” and was intoxicated by his prose. We performed for writers, artists, artists, often there were even four performances a day. And on one of these days, preparing for a performance, Burt Bacharach and I were backstage. My charming translator Nora came to us and said that Paustovsky was in the hall. But this couldn’t be, I know that he is in the hospital with a heart attack, that’s what they told me at the airport on the day I arrived. I objected: “This is impossible!” Nora assured: “Yes, he is here with his wife.” The performance went well. But you can never foresee this - when you try especially hard, most often you do not achieve what you want. At the end of the show I was asked to stay on stage. And suddenly Paustovsky walked up the steps. I was so shocked by his presence that, being unable to utter a word in Russian, I found no other way to express my admiration for him than to kneel before him. Worried about his health, I wanted him to return to the hospital immediately. But his wife reassured me: “It will be better for him.” It took him a lot of effort to come to see me. He died soon after. I still have his books and memories of him. He wrote romantically, but simply, without embellishment. I'm not sure if he is known in America, but one day he will be “discovered.” In his descriptions he resembles Hamsun. He is the best Russian writer I know. I met him too late."

In memory of this meeting, Marlene Dietrich gave Konstantin Georgievich several photographs. One of them captured Konstantin Paustovsky and an actress kneeling before her beloved writer on the stage of the Central House of Writers.

Last years

In 1966, Konstantin Paustovsky signed a letter from twenty-five cultural and scientific figures to the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee L. I. Brezhnev against the rehabilitation of J. Stalin. His literary secretary during this period (1965-1968) was journalist Valery Druzhbinsky.

For a long time, Konstantin Paustovsky suffered from asthma and suffered several heart attacks. Died on July 14, 1968 in Moscow. According to his will, he was buried in the local cemetery of Tarusa, the title of “Honorary Citizen” of which he was awarded on May 30, 1967.

In 1965, he signed a letter petitioning to provide A. I. Solzhenitsyn with an apartment in Moscow, and in 1967 he supported Solzhenitsyn, who wrote a letter to the IV Congress of Soviet Writers demanding the abolition of censorship of literary works.

Shortly before his death, the seriously ill Paustovsky sent a letter to A. N. Kosygin with a request not to fire the chief director of the Taganka Theater Yu. P. Lyubimov. The letter was followed by a telephone conversation with Kosygin, in which Konstantin Georgievich said:

Family

• Father, Georgy Maksimovich Paustovsky (1852-1912), was a railway statistician, came from Zaporozhye Cossacks. He died and was buried in 1912 in the village. An ancient settlement near the White Church.
• Mother, Maria Grigorievna, née Vysochanskaya(1858 - June 20, 1934) - buried at the Baikovo Cemetery in Kyiv.
• Sister, Paustovskaya Galina Georgievna(1886 - January 8, 1936) - buried at the Baikovo cemetery in Kyiv (next to her mother).
• The brothers of K. G. Paustovsky were killed on the same day in 1915 on the fronts of the First World War: Boris Georgievich Paustovsky(1888-1915) - lieutenant of a sapper battalion, killed on the Galician front; Vadim Georgievich Paustovsky(1890-1915) - ensign of the Navaginsky infantry regiment, killed in battle in the Riga direction.
• Grandfather (paternal side), Maxim Grigorievich Paustovsky- former soldier, participant in the Russian-Turkish war, one-palace; grandmother, Honorata Vikentievna- Turkish (Fatma), baptized into Orthodoxy. Paustovsky’s grandfather brought her from Kazanlak, where he was in captivity.
• Grandfather (maternal side), Grigory Moiseevich Vysochansky(d. 1901), notary in Cherkasy; grandmother Vincentia Ivanovna(d. 1914) - Polish noblewoman.
• First wife - Ekaterina Stepanovna Zagorskaya(2.10.1889-1969), (father - Stepan Alexandrovich, priest, died before Catherine's birth; mother - Maria Yakovlevna Gorodtsova, a rural teacher, died a few years after the death of her husband). On the maternal side, Ekaterina Zagorskaya is a relative of the famous archaeologist Vasily Alekseevich Gorodtsov, discoverer of the unique antiquities of Old Ryazan. About her (with a portrait) and her sister, buried in Efremov, see Shadows of an ancient cemetery - a former necropolis in Efremov and rural churchyards / Author: M. V. Mayorov Mayorov, Mikhail Vladimirovich, G. N. Polshakov, O. V. Myasoedova, T. V. Mayorova. - Tula: Borus-Print LLC, 2015. - 148 p.; ill. ISBN 978-5-905154-20-1 .

Paustovsky met his future wife when he went as an orderly to the front (World War I), where Ekaterina Zagorskaya was a nurse.

Name Hatice (Russian: "Ekaterina") E. Zagorskaya was given the gift of a Tatar woman from a Crimean village where she spent the summer of 1914.

Paustovsky and Zagorskaya got married in the summer of 1916, in Ekaterina’s native Podlesnaya Sloboda in the Ryazan province (now the Lukhovitsky district of the Moscow region). It was in this church that her father served as a priest. In August 1925, a son was born to the Paustovskys in Ryazan. Vadim(08/02/1925 - 04/10/2000). Until the end of his life, Vadim Paustovsky collected letters from his parents, documents, and donated many things to the Paustovsky Museum-Center in Moscow.

In 1936, Ekaterina Zagorskaya and Konstantin Paustovsky separated. Catherine admitted to her relatives that she gave her husband a divorce herself. She couldn’t stand that he “got involved with a Polish woman” (meaning Paustovsky’s second wife). Konstantin Georgievich, however, continued to take care of his son Vadim after the divorce.

• Second wife - Valeria Vladimirovna Valishevskaya-Navashina.

Valeria Valishevskaya (Waleria Waliszewska)- sister of the famous Polish artist Zygmunt (Sigismund) Waliszewski in the 20s (Zygmunt Waliszewski). Valeria becomes the inspiration for many works - for example, “The Meshchera Side”, “Throw to the South” (here Valishevskaya was the prototype of Maria).

• Third wife - Tatyana Alekseevna Evteeva-Arbuzova (1903-1978).

Tatyana was an actress of the theater named after. Meyerhold. They met when Tatyana Evteeva was the wife of the fashionable playwright Alexei Arbuzov (Arbuzov’s play “Tanya” is dedicated to her). She married K. G. Paustovsky in 1950. Paustovsky wrote about her:

Alexey Konstantinovich(1950-1976), son from his third wife Tatyana, was born in the village of Solotcha, Ryazan region. Died at the age of 26 from a drug overdose. The drama of the situation is that he was not the only one who committed suicide or poisoned himself - there was a girl with him. But her doctors resuscitated her, but he was not saved.

Creation

My writing life began with the desire to know everything, see everything and travel. And, obviously, this is where it ends.
The poetry of wanderings, merging with unvarnished reality, formed the best alloy for creating books.

The first works, “On the Water” and “Four” (in the notes to the first volume of the six-volume collected works of K. Paustovsky, published in 1958, the story is called “Three”), were written by Paustovsky while still studying in the last grade of the Kiev gymnasium. The story “On the Water” was published in the Kiev almanac “Lights”, No. 32 and was signed with the pseudonym “K. Balagin" (the only story published by Paustovsky under a pseudonym). The story “Four” was published in the youth magazine “Knight” (No. 10-12, October-December, 1913).

In 1916, while working at the Nev-Vilde boiler plant in Taganrog, K. Paustovsky began writing his first novel, “Romantics,” work on which lasted seven years and was completed in 1923 in Odessa.

It seems to me that one of the characteristic features of my prose is its romantic mood...

... A romantic mood does not contradict an interest in and love for the “rough” life. In all areas of reality, with rare exceptions, there are seeds of romance.
They can be overlooked and trampled, or, conversely, given the opportunity to grow, decorate and ennoble the inner world of a person with their flowering.

In 1928, Paustovsky’s first collection of stories, “Oncoming Ships,” was published (“My first real book was the collection of stories “Oncoming Ships”), although individual essays and stories had been published before that. In a short period of time (winter 1928), the novel “Shining Clouds” was written, in which detective-adventurous intrigue, conveyed in magnificent figurative language, was combined with autobiographical episodes related to Paustovsky’s trips around the Black Sea and the Caucasus in 1925-1927. The novel was published by the Kharkov publishing house "Proletary" in 1929.

The story “Kara-Bugaz” brought fame. Written on the basis of true facts and published in 1932 by the Moscow publishing house “Young Guard,” the story immediately brought Paustovsky (according to critics) to the forefront of Soviet writers of that time. The story was published many times in different languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR and abroad. The film “Kara-Bugaz”, shot in 1935 by director Alexander Razumny, was not allowed to be released for political reasons.

In 1935, in Moscow, the Khudozhestvennaya Literatura publishing house first published the novel “Romantics,” which was included in the collection of the same name.

Regardless of the length of the work, Paustovsky’s narrative structure is additive, “in selection,” when episode follows episode; The predominant form of narration is in the first person, on behalf of the narrator-observer. More complex structures with the subordination of several lines of action are alien to Paustovsky's prose.

In 1958, the State Publishing House of Fiction published a six-volume collected works of the writer with a circulation of 225 thousand copies.

Bibliography

• Collected Works in 6 volumes. - M.: Goslitizdat, 1957-1958
• Collected works in 8 volumes + extras. volume. - M.: Fiction, 1967-1972
• Collected works in 9 volumes. - M.: Fiction, 1981-1986
• Selected works in 3 volumes. - M.: Russian book, 1995

Awards and prizes

Film adaptations

Music

The first monument to K. G. Paustovsky was opened on April 1, 2010, also in Odessa, on the territory of the Sculpture Garden of the Odessa Literary Museum. Kiev sculptor Oleg Chernoivanov immortalized the great writer in the image of a mysterious sphinx.

On August 24, 2012, a monument to Konstantin Paustovsky was inaugurated on the banks of the Oka River in Tarusa, created by sculptor Vadim Tserkovnikov based on photographs of Konstantin Georgievich, in which the writer is depicted with his dog Grozny.

The minor planet, discovered by N. S. Chernykh on September 8, 1978 at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and registered under number 5269, is named in honor of K. G. Paustovsky - (5269) Paustovskij = 1978 SL6 .

May 31, 2017 marked the 125th anniversary of the birth of the classic of Russian literature Konstantin Paustovsky. The order on the creation of an organizing committee for the preparation and holding of events in honor of the significant date, chaired by Mikhail Seslavinsky, was approved by the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications on November 11, 2016.

Member of the organizing committee for the preparation and holding of events in honor of the 125th anniversary of the birth of K.G. Paustovsky, by agreement, included the director of the State Literary Museum Dmitry Bak, director Vsevolod Bagno, director of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art Tatyana Goryaeva, director of the Moscow Literary Museum-Center K.G. Paustovsky Anzhelika Dormidontova, curator of the House-Museum of K.G. Paustovsky in Tarusa Galina Arbuzova, head of the House-Museum of K.G. Paustovsky in Old Crimea Irina Kotyuk and others.

On Paustovsky’s birthday in 2017, the main celebrations took place at the writer’s House-Museum in Tarusa. In total, about 100 festive events took place throughout Russia during the anniversary year. Among them is “Night in the Archive” at the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI), where the guests were presented with the author’s original manuscripts. An international conference dedicated to the literary heritage of Konstantin Paustovsky was held in Moscow.

The exhibition “Unknown Paustovsky” was held at the Writer’s House-Museum in Tarusa. The “Paustovsky Trail” route has opened in the Meshchersky National Park (it is also planned to create a museum there based on his work “Cordon 273”). The All-Russian youth literary and musical festival “Tarussky Thunderstorms” brought together venerable and aspiring poets from many regions of Russia in Tarusa. For the writer's anniversary, postal workers issued an envelope with an original stamp.

Museums

Notes

1. Nikolai Golovkin. Testament of Doctor Paust. To the 115th anniversary of the birth of Konstantin Paustovsky (undefined) . Internet newspaper “Century” (May 30, 2007). Retrieved August 6, 2014.

Soviet literature

Konstantin Gelrgievich Paustovsky

Biography

PAUSTOVSKY, KONSTANTIN GEORGIEVICH (1892−1968), Russian writer. Born on May 19 (31), 1892 in Moscow in the family of a railway statistician. His father, according to Paustovsky, “was an incorrigible dreamer and a Protestant,” which is why he constantly changed jobs. After several moves, the family settled in Kyiv. Paustovsky studied at the 1st Kyiv Classical Gymnasium. When he was in the sixth grade, his father left the family, and Paustovsky was forced to earn his own living and study by tutoring.

In his autobiographical essay Several Fragmentary Thoughts (1967), Paustovsky wrote: “The desire for the extraordinary has haunted me since childhood. My state could be defined in two words: admiration for the imaginary world and melancholy due to the inability to see it. These two feelings prevailed in my youthful poems and my first immature prose.” A. Green had a huge influence on Paustovsky, especially in his youth.

Paustovsky's first short story On the Water (1912), written in his last year at the gymnasium, was published in the Kiev almanac "Lights".

After graduating from high school, Paustovsky studied at Kiev University, then transferred to Moscow University. The First World War forced him to interrupt his studies. Paustovsky became a counselor on the Moscow tram and worked on an ambulance train. In 1915, with a field medical detachment, he retreated along with the Russian army across Poland and Belarus.

After the death of his two older brothers at the front, Paustovsky returned to his mother in Moscow, but soon began a wandering life again. For a year he worked at metallurgical plants in Yekaterinoslav and Yuzovka and at a boiler plant in Taganrog. In 1916 he became a fisherman in an artel on the Sea of ​​Azov. While living in Taganrog, Paustovsky began writing his first novel, Romantics (1916−1923, published 1935). This novel, the content and mood of which corresponded to its title, was marked by the author's search for lyric-prose form. Paustovsky sought to create a coherent narrative narrative about what he happened to see and feel in his youth. One of the heroes of the novel, old Oscar, spent his whole life resisting the fact that they tried to turn him from an artist into a breadwinner. The main motive of the Romantics - the fate of an artist who seeks to overcome loneliness - was subsequently found in many of Paustovsky's works.

Paustovsky met the February and October revolutions of 1917 in Moscow. After the victory of Soviet power, he began working as a journalist and “lived the intense life of newspaper editorial offices.” But soon the writer “spinned” again: he went to Kyiv, where his mother had moved, and survived several coups there during the Civil War. Soon Paustovsky ended up in Odessa, where he fell in with young writers - I. Ilf, I. Babel, E. Bagritsky, G. Shengeli and others. After living for two years in Odessa, he left for Sukhum, then moved to Batum, then to Tiflis . Travels around the Caucasus led Paustovsky to Armenia and northern Persia.

In 1923, Paustovsky returned to Moscow and began working as an editor at ROSTA. At this time, not only his essays, but also his stories were published. In 1928, Paustovsky's first collection of stories, Oncoming Ships, was published. In the same year, the novel Glittering Clouds was written. In this work, detective-adventurous intrigue was combined with autobiographical episodes associated with Paustovsky’s trips to the Black Sea and the Caucasus. In the year the novel was written, the writer worked in the watermen’s newspaper “On Watch,” with which at that time A.S. Novikov-Priboi, M.A. Bulgakov (Paustovsky’s classmate at the 1st Kiev Gymnasium), V. Kataev and others collaborated.

In the 1930s, Paustovsky actively worked as a journalist for the newspaper Pravda and the magazines 30 Days, Our Achievements, etc., and visited Solikamsk, Astrakhan, Kalmykia and many other places - in fact, he traveled all over the country. Many of the impressions of these “hot pursuit” trips, described in newspaper essays, were embodied in works of art. Thus, the hero of the 1930s essay “Underwater Winds” became the prototype of the main character of the story Kara-Bugaz (1932). The history of the creation of Kara-Bugaz is described in detail in Paustovsky’s book of essays and stories, The Golden Rose (1955) - one of the most famous works of Russian literature dedicated to understanding the nature of creativity. In Kara-Bugaz, Paustovsky managed to talk about the development of Glauber's salt deposits in the Caspian Gulf as poetically as about the wanderings of a romantic youth in his first works.

The story Colchis (1934) is dedicated to the transformation of reality and the creation of man-made subtropics. The prototype of one of the heroes of Colchis was the great Georgian primitivist artist N. Pirosmani.

After the publication of Kara-Bugaz, Paustovsky left his service and became a professional writer. He still traveled a lot, lived on the Kola Peninsula and Ukraine, visited the Volga, Kama, Don, Dnieper and other great rivers, Central Asia, Crimea, Altai, Pskov, Novgorod, Belarus and other places. A special place in his work is occupied by the Meshchersky region, where Paustovsky lived for a long time alone or with his fellow writers - A. Gaidar, R. Fraerman and others. About his beloved Meshchera, Paustovsky wrote: “I found the greatest, simplest and most ingenuous happiness in the forest Meshchersky edge. Happiness of closeness to your land, concentration and inner freedom, favorite thoughts and hard work. I owe most of the things I have written to Central Russia - and only to it. I will mention only the main ones: Meshcherskaya Side, Isaac Levitan, The Tale of Forests, the cycle of stories Summer Days, The Old Shuttle, Night in October, Telegram, Rainy Dawn, Cordon 273, In the depths of Russia, Alone with the Autumn, Ilyinsky Whirlpool" (we are talking about stories written in the 1930s-1960s). The Central Russian hinterland became for Paustovsky a place of a kind of “emigration”, a creative - and possibly physical - salvation during the period of Stalinist repressions. During the Great Patriotic War, Paustovsky worked as a war correspondent and wrote stories, including Snow (1943) and Rainy Dawn (1945), which critics called the most delicate lyrical watercolors. In the 1950s, Paustovsky lived in Moscow and Tarusa-on-Oka. He became one of the compilers of the most important collective collections of the democratic movement, Literary Moscow (1956) and Tarusa Pages (1961). During the “thaw”, he actively advocated for the literary and political rehabilitation of writers persecuted under Stalin - Babel, Yu. Olesha, Bulgakov, Green, N. Zabolotsky and others. In 1945-1963, Paustovsky wrote his main work - the autobiographical Story of Life, consisting of six books: Distant Years (1946), Restless Youth (1954), The Beginning of an Unknown Age (1956), Time of Great Expectations (1958), Throw to the South (1959−1960), The Book of Wanderings (1963). In the mid-1950s, Paustovsky gained worldwide recognition. Paustovsky got the opportunity to travel around Europe. He visited Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Turkey, Greece, Sweden, Italy and other countries; in 1965 he lived for a long time on the island of Capri. Impressions from these trips formed the basis for stories and travel sketches of the 1950s-1960s: Italian Meetings, Fleeting Paris, Lights of the English Channel, etc. Paustovsky’s work had a huge influence on writers belonging to the so-called “school of lyrical prose” - Yu . Kazakov, S. Antonov, V. Soloukhin, V. Konetsky and others. Paustovsky died in Moscow on July 14, 1968.

Paustovsky, Konstantin Georgievich, was born on May 19 (31), 1892 in Moscow. Konstantin's father's work as a statistician on the railway was associated with a constant change of place of work, so the family constantly moved. Having settled in Kyiv, young Paustovsky received his education at the First Classical Gymnasium. His father left the family when Konstantin was in 6th grade. He starts working as a tutor to support his life and studies. The first story, “On the Water,” was written in the last grade at the gymnasium and published in the anthology “Lights” in 1912.

He entered Kiev University, but then transferred to Moscow, where he was unable to complete his education due to the First World War. Paustovsky gets a job in Moscow as a tram counselor and serves on an ambulance train. Together with the Russian army, as part of a medical detachment, he retreated in 1915 through the lands of Poland and Belarus.

When Pustovsky’s 2 older brothers died in the war, he briefly returned to his mother in Moscow. Then he leaves to work in Yekaterinoslavl, and then to Yuzovsk at metallurgical plants, after which he works at the Taganrog Boiler Plant. In 1916, he joined a fishing artel on the Sea of ​​Azov. A year later he began working as a journalist in Moscow. Following his mother, he moved to Kyiv, then lived in Odessa for 2 years, visited Sukhum, Batum, traveled through the Caucasus, Armenia and Persia.

Since 1923, Paustovsky worked as editor of the Moscow ROSTA and published actively. In 1928, the first collection of stories “Oncoming Ships” and the novel “Shining Clouds” were published. In the 30s actively collaborates with periodicals “Pravda”, “Our Achievements”, “30 Days”, etc. and continues to travel and describe his impressions in his works. During World War II, the writer was a war correspondent. In the post-war years, he participated in the formation of collective collections “Literary Moscow” (1956) and “Tarussky Pages” (1961). In the 1950s His works become popular in the world community, Paustovsky begins to travel around Europe and artistically describe his trips. For quite a long time in 1965 he was on the island of Capri.

Works

Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky was born on May 19 (31), 1892 in Moscow. Besides him, the family had three more children, two brothers and a sister. The writer's father was a railway employee, and the family often moved from place to place: after Moscow they lived in Pskov, Vilna, and Kyiv. In 1911, in the last class of the gymnasium, Kostya Paustovsky wrote his first story, and it was published in the Kiev literary magazine “Lights”.

Konstantin Georgievich changed many professions: he was a leader and conductor of the Moscow tram, a worker at metallurgical plants in Donbass and Taganrog, a fisherman, an orderly in the army during the First World War, an employee, a teacher of Russian literature, and a journalist. During the Civil War, Paustovsky fought in the Red Army. During the Great Patriotic War he was a war correspondent on the Southern Front.

During his long writing life, he visited many parts of our country. “Almost every book of mine is a trip. Or, rather, every trip is a book,” said Paustovsky. He traveled to the Caucasus and Ukraine, the Volga, Kama, Don, Dnieper, Oka and Desna, and was in Central Asia, Altai, Siberia, the Onega region, and the Baltic.

But he especially fell in love with Meshchera - a fabulously beautiful region between Vladimir and Ryazan - where he came for the first time in 1930. There was everything that had attracted the writer since childhood - “dense forests, lakes, winding forest rivers, abandoned roads and even inns " Paustovsky wrote that he “owed many of his stories to Meshchera, “Summer Days” and the short story “The Meshchera Side.” Paustovsky is the author of a series of stories for children and several fairy tales. They teach you to love your native nature, to be observant, to see the unusual in the ordinary and to be able to fantasize, to be kind, honest, and able to admit and correct your own guilt. These important human qualities are so necessary in life.

Paustovsky's books have been translated into many foreign languages.
He was awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders and a medal.

The writer died on July 14, 1968; buried in Tarusa, Kaluga region.

__________________________________________________

BADGER NOSE

The lake near the shores was covered with heaps of yellow leaves. They were like this
a lot that we couldn't fish. The fishing lines lay on the leaves and did not sink.
We had to take an old boat out to the middle of the lake, where they bloomed
water lilies and blue water seemed black as tar.

There we caught colorful perches. They beat and sparkled in the grass, like
fabulous Japanese roosters. We pulled out tin roach and ruffs from
with eyes like two small moons. The pikes splashed at us as small as
needles, teeth.

It was autumn in the sun and fogs. Through the fallen forests were visible
distant clouds and blue thick air. At night in the thickets around us
the low stars moved and trembled.
There was a fire burning in our parking lot. We burned it all day and night,
to drive away the wolves, they howled quietly along the far shores of the lake. Their
disturbed by the smoke of the fire and cheerful human cries.

We were sure that the fire scared the animals, but one evening in the grass near
At the fire, some animal began to snort angrily. He was not visible. He's worried
ran around us, rustled the tall grass, snorted and got angry, but didn’t stick his head out
from the grass even the ears.

The potatoes were fried in a frying pan, a pungent, tasty smell emanated from them, and
the beast obviously came running at this smell.

There was a little boy with us. He was only nine years old, but he was good
endured overnight stays in the forest and the cold of autumn dawns. Much better than us
adults, he noticed and told everything.

He was an inventor, but we adults really loved his inventions. There's no way we
They could, and did not want to, prove to him that he was telling a lie. Every day
he came up with something new: either he heard the fish whispering, or he saw
how the ants made a ferry across a stream of pine bark and cobwebs.

We pretended to believe him.
Everything that surrounded us seemed extraordinary: the late moon,
shining over black lakes, and high clouds like mountains of pink
snow, and even the usual sea noise of tall pines.

The boy was the first to hear the animal's snort and hissed at us so that we
fell silent. We became silent. We tried not to even breathe, although our hand involuntarily
she was reaching for the double-barreled shotgun - who knows what kind of animal it could be!

Half an hour later, the animal stuck out of the grass a wet black nose, similar to
pork snout. The nose sniffed the air for a long time and trembled with greed. Then from the grass
a sharp muzzle with black piercing eyes appeared. Finally showed up
striped skin.

A small badger crawled out of the thicket. He pressed his paw and carefully
looked at me. Then he snorted in disgust and took a step towards the potatoes.

It fried and hissed, splashing boiling lard. I wanted to scream
the animal that he would get burned, but I was too late - the badger jumped to the frying pan and
stuck his nose into it...

It smelled like burnt leather. The badger squealed and rushed with a desperate cry
back to the grass. He ran and screamed throughout the forest, broke bushes and spat
resentment and pain.

There was confusion on the lake and in the forest. Without time, the frightened ones screamed
frogs, birds were alarmed, and right at the shore, like a cannon shot,
a pike struck.
In the morning the boy woke me up and told me what he had just seen,
how a badger treats its burnt nose. I didn't believe it.

I sat down by the fire and listened sleepily to the morning voices of the birds. In the distance
White-tailed sandpipers whistled, ducks quacked, cranes croaked on dry
in the swamps, fish were splashing, turtle doves were quietly cooing. I didn't want to
move.

The boy pulled me by the hand. He was offended. He wanted to prove to me that he
I didn't lie. He called me to go see how the badger was being treated.
I reluctantly agreed. We carefully made our way into the thicket, and among the thickets
Heather I saw a rotten pine stump. He smelled of mushrooms and iodine.

A badger stood near a stump, with its back to us. He picked out the stump and stuck it in
the middle of the stump, into wet and cold dust, a burned nose.

He stood motionless and cooled his unfortunate nose, and ran around and
snorted the other little badger. He was worried and pushed our badger
nose to stomach. Our badger growled at him and kicked with his furry hind paws.

Then he sat down and cried. He looked at us with round and wet eyes,
moaned and licked his sore nose with his rough tongue. It was as if he was asking for
help, but we couldn't help him.
A year later, on the shores of the same lake, I met a badger with a scar on
nose He sat by the water and tried to catch the dragonflies rattling like tin with his paw.

I waved my hand at him, but he sneezed angrily in my direction and hid in
lingonberry thickets.
Since then I haven't seen him again.

STEEL RING.

Grandfather Kuzma lived with his granddaughter Varyusha in the village of Mokhovoe, near the forest.

The winter was harsh, with strong winds and snow. During the entire winter, it never got warmer and fussy melt water did not drip from the plank roofs. At night, chilled wolves howled in the forest. Grandfather Kuzma said that they howl out of envy towards people: the wolf also wants to live in a hut, scratch itself and lie by the stove, warm up its frozen, shaggy skin.

In the middle of winter, my grandfather ran out of shag. The grandfather coughed heavily, complained of poor health and said that if he took just one drag or two, he would immediately feel better.

On Sunday, Varyusha went to the neighboring village of Perebory to buy shag for her grandfather. A railway passed by the village. Varyusha bought some shag, tied it in a calico bag and went to the station to look at the trains. They rarely stopped in Perebory. Almost always they rushed past with a clang and roar.

Two soldiers were sitting on the platform. One was bearded, with a cheerful gray eye. The locomotive roared. It was already visible how he, all in pairs, was furiously rushing towards the station from the distant black forest.

Fast! - said the fighter with a beard. - Look, girl, she'll blow you away with a train. You'll fly into the sky.

The locomotive crashed into the station. The snow swirled and covered my eyes. Then they started knocking, the wheels catching up with each other. Varyusha grabbed the lamppost and closed her eyes, as if she really wouldn’t be lifted off the ground and dragged behind the train. When the train rushed by, and the snow dust was still spinning in the air and landing on the ground, the bearded fighter asked Varyusha:

What's that in your bag? Not shag?

“Makhorka,” answered Varyusha.

Maybe you can sell it? I'm very keen on smoking.

“Grandfather Kuzma does not order to sell,” Varyusha answered sternly. - This is for his cough.

“Oh, you,” said the fighter, “a flower-petal in felt boots!” Painfully serious!

“Just take as much as you need,” Varyusha said and handed the bag to the fighter. - Smoke!

The fighter poured a good handful of shag into his overcoat pocket, rolled a thick cigarette, lit a cigarette, took Varyusha by the chin and looked, chuckling, into her blue eyes.

“Oh, you,” he repeated, “pansies with pigtails!” How can I thank you? Is it this?

The fighter took a small steel ring from his overcoat pocket, blew off crumbs of shag and salt from it, rubbed it on the sleeve of his overcoat and put it on Varyusha’s middle finger:

Wear it in good health! This ring is absolutely wonderful. Look how it burns!

Why is he, uncle, so wonderful? - Varyusha asked, flushed.

“And because,” the fighter answered, “if you wear it on your middle finger, it will bring health.” And for you and grandfather Kuzma. And if you put it on this one, on the nameless one,” the fighter pulled Varyusha’s chilled, red finger, “you will have great joy.” Or, for example, you might want to see the white world with all its wonders. Put the ring on your index finger and you will definitely see it!

As if? - Varyusha asked.

“And you believe him,” another fighter boomed from under his raised overcoat collar. - He's a sorcerer. Have you heard this word?

I heard.

Well then! - the fighter laughed. - He's an old sapper. The mine didn't even hit him!

Thank you! - Varyusha said and ran to her place in Mokhovoye.

The wind blew up and thick, thick snow began to fall. Varyusha touched everything

ring, turned it and watched how it sparkled in the winter light.

“Why did the fighter forget to tell me about his little finger? - she thought. - What will happen then? Let me put the ring on my little finger and I’ll try it.”

She put the ring on her little finger. He was thin, the ring could not stay on him, fell into the deep snow near the path and immediately dived to the very snowy bottom.

Varyusha gasped and began to shovel the snow with her hands. But there was no ring. Varyusha’s fingers turned blue. They were so cramped from the frost that they could no longer bend.

Varyusha began to cry. The ring is missing! This means that grandfather Kuzma will no longer be healthy, and she will not have great joy, and she will not see the world with all its wonders. Varyusha stuck an old spruce branch into the snow, in the place where she dropped the ring, and went home. She wiped her tears with a mitten, but they still came and froze, and this made her eyes sting and hurt.

Grandfather Kuzma was delighted with the shag, smoked the whole hut, and said about the ring:

Don't worry, daughter! Where it fell, it lies there. Ask Sidor. He'll find it for you.

The old sparrow Sidor was sleeping on a pole, swollen like a balloon. All winter, Sidor lived in Kuzma’s hut on his own, like the owner. He forced not only Varyusha, but also his grandfather himself to reckon with his character. He pecked the porridge straight from the bowls, and tried to snatch the bread from his hands, and when they drove him away, he became offended, fussed, and began to fight and chirp so angrily that the neighbor's sparrows flew under the eaves, listened, and then made noise for a long time, condemning Sidor for his bad temper. . He lives in a hut, warm, well-fed, but everything is not enough for him!

The next day Varyusha caught Sidor, wrapped him in a scarf and carried him into the forest. Only the very tip of a spruce branch stuck out from under the snow. Varyusha put Sidor on a branch and asked:

Look, rummage! Maybe you'll find it!

But Sidor squinted his eyes, looked incredulously at the snow and squeaked: “Look! Look! I found a fool!... Look, look, look!” - Sidor repeated, fell off the branch and flew back to the hut.

The ring was never found.

Grandfather Kuzma coughed more and more. By spring he climbed onto the stove. He almost never came down from there and asked for a drink more and more often. Varyusha served him cold water in an iron ladle.

Blizzards swirled over the village, blowing huts over. The pines got stuck in the snow, and Varyusha could no longer find in the forest the place where she had dropped the ring. More and more often, hiding behind the stove, she quietly cried out of pity for her grandfather and scolded herself.

Fool! - she whispered. - I got spoiled and dropped my ring. Here's to you for this! It is for you!

She beat herself on the crown of the head with her fist, punished herself, and grandfather Kuzma asked:

Who are you making noise with there?

With Sidor,” answered Varyusha. - It has become so unheard of! Everyone wants to fight.

One morning Varyusha woke up because Sidor was jumping on the window and knocking on the glass with his beak. Varyusha opened her eyes and closed them. Long drops fell from the roof, chasing each other. The hot light beat in the sun. The jackdaws were screaming.

Varyusha looked out into the street. The warm wind blew into her eyes and ruffled her hair.

Here comes spring! - said Varyusha.

The black branches glistened, the wet snow rustled, sliding from the roofs, and the damp forest rustled importantly and cheerfully beyond the outskirts. Spring walked across the fields like a young mistress. As soon as she looked at the ravine, a stream immediately began to gurgle and overflow in it. Spring was coming and the sound of streams became louder and louder with each step.

The snow in the forest darkened. At first, brown pine needles, which had fallen off during the winter, appeared on it. Then a lot of dry branches appeared - they were broken by a storm back in December - then last year's fallen leaves turned yellow, thawed patches appeared and the first coltsfoot flowers bloomed on the edge of the last snowdrifts.

Varyusha found an old spruce branch in the forest - the one she had stuck in the snow where she had dropped the ring, and began to carefully rake out old leaves, empty cones scattered by woodpeckers, branches, rotten moss. A light flashed under one black leaf. Varyusha screamed and sat down. Here it is, a steel nose ring! It hasn't rusted at all.

Varyusha grabbed it, put it on her middle finger and ran home.

From a distance, running up to the hut, she saw grandfather Kuzma. He left the hut, sat on the rubble, and the blue smoke from the shag rose above his grandfather straight to the sky, as if Kuzma was drying out in the spring sun and steam was smoking above him.

Well, - said the grandfather, - you, the turntable, jumped out of the hut, forgot to close the door, and the whole hut was blown through with light air. And immediately the illness left me. Now I’ll smoke, take a cleaver, prepare some firewood, we’ll light the stove and bake rye cakes.

Varyusha laughed, stroked her grandfather’s shaggy gray hair, and said:

Thanks ring! It cured you, grandfather Kuzma.

All day Varyusha wore a ring on her middle finger to firmly drive away her grandfather’s illness. Only in the evening, when she was going to bed, she took the ring off her middle finger and put it on her ring finger. After this, great joy was to happen. But she hesitated, did not come, and Varyusha fell asleep without waiting.

She got up early, got dressed and left the hut.

A quiet and warm dawn was breaking over the earth. At the edge of the sky the stars were still burning out. Varyusha went to the forest. She stopped at the edge of the forest. What is that ringing in the forest, as if someone is carefully moving the bells?

Varyusha bent down, listened and clasped her hands: the white snowdrops swayed slightly, nodded to the dawn, and each flower tinkled, as if a small bell-ringer beetle was sitting in it and beating its paw on a silver web. At the top of a pine tree a woodpecker struck five times.

"Five hours! - thought Varyusha. - It’s so early! And be quiet!

Immediately, high on the branches in the golden dawn light, an oriole began to sing.

Varyusha stood with her mouth slightly open, listened and smiled. A strong, warm, gentle wind blew over her, and something rustled nearby. The hazel swayed and yellow pollen fell from the nut earrings. Someone walked unseen past Varyusha, carefully moving away the branches. A cuckoo began to crow and bow towards him.

“Who went through this? But I didn’t even notice!” - thought Varyusha.

She didn't know that spring had passed her by.

Varyusha laughed loudly, loudly, throughout the forest, and ran home. And tremendous joy - such that you cannot grasp it with your hands - rang and sang in her heart.

Spring flared up every day more and more brightly, more and more cheerfully. Such light poured from the sky that grandfather Kuzma’s eyes became narrow, like slits, but they chuckled all the time. And then, in the forests, in the meadows, in the ravines, all at once, as if someone had sprinkled magic water on them, thousands of thousands of flowers began to bloom and sparkle.

Varyusha was thinking about putting the ring on her index finger to see the white light with all its wonders, but she looked at all these Flowers, at the sticky birch leaves, at the clearer sky and the hot sun, listened to the roll call of roosters, the ringing of water, the whistling of birds over the fields - and I didn’t put the ring on my index finger.

“I’ll make it,” she thought. - Nowhere in this world can it be as good as the place in Mokhovoy. What a beauty this is! It’s not for nothing that Grandfather Kuzma says that our land is a true paradise and there is no other such good land in this world!”

HARE FEET

Vanya Malyavin came to the veterinarian in our village from Lake Urzhenskoye and
brought a small warm hare wrapped in a torn cotton jacket. Hare
cried and often blinked his eyes red from tears...

-Are you crazy? - the veterinarian shouted. - Soon you will come to me mice
carry it, you fool!

“Don’t bark, this is a special hare,” Vanya said in a hoarse whisper. —
His grandfather sent him and ordered him to be treated.

- What to treat for?

- His paws are burned.
The veterinarian turned Vanya to face the door, pushed him in the back and shouted
following:

- Go ahead, go ahead! I don't know how to treat them. Fry it with onions - grandfather will be
snack.

Vanya didn’t answer. He went out into the hallway, blinked his eyes, pulled
his nose and buried himself in the log wall. Tears flowed down the wall. The hare is quiet
trembling under his greasy jacket.

- What are you doing, little one? - the compassionate grandmother Anisya asked Vanya; she brought
to the veterinarian my only goat. - Why are you, dear ones, crying together?
are you pouring? Oh what happened?

“He’s burned, grandpa’s hare,” Vanya said quietly. — At a forest fire
He burned his paws and can't run. Look, he's about to die.

“Don’t die, darling,” Anisya mumbled. - Tell your grandfather if
The hare is very eager to go out, let him carry him to the city to Karl
Petrovich.

Vanya wiped away his tears and walked home through the forests to Lake Urzhenskoye. He didn't go, but
ran barefoot along the hot sandy road. The recent forest fire has passed
side to the north near the lake itself. It smelled of burning and dry cloves. She
grew in large islands in clearings.
The hare moaned.

Vanya found fluffy hair covered with silver soft hair along the way.
leaves, tore them out, put them under a pine tree and turned the hare around. The hare looked at
leaves, buried his head in them and fell silent.

-What are you doing, gray? - Vanya asked quietly. - You should eat.
The hare was silent.

There was unheard-of heat over the forests that summer. In the morning lines floated
white clouds. At noon the clouds were rapidly rushing upward, towards the zenith, and at
before their eyes they were carried away and disappeared somewhere beyond the boundaries of the sky. A hot hurricane was already blowing
two weeks without a break. The resin flowing down the pine trunks turned
into an amber stone.

The next morning the grandfather put on clean boots and new bast shoes, took a staff and a piece
bread and wandered into the city. Vanya carried the hare from behind. The hare became completely quiet, only
From time to time he shuddered with his whole body and sighed convulsively.

The dry wind blew up a cloud of dust over the city, soft as flour. I flew in it
chicken fluff, dry leaves and straw. From a distance it seemed as if there was smoke over the city
quiet fire.

The market square was very empty and hot; the carriage horses were dozing
near the water booth, and they had straw hats on their heads.
Grandfather crossed himself.

“It’s either a horse or a bride—the jester will sort them out!” - he said and spat.
We spent a long time asking passers-by about Karl Petrovich, but no one really said anything.
didn't answer. We went to the pharmacy. Fat old man in pince-nez and short
in a white robe shrugged his shoulders angrily and said:

- I like it! Quite a strange question! Karl Petrovich Korsh -
specialist in children's diseases - it's been three years since he stopped taking
patients. Why do you need it?
The grandfather, stuttering from respect for the pharmacist and from timidity, told about the hare.

- I like it! - said the pharmacist. — Interesting patients appeared in
our city. I like this great!
He nervously took off his pince-nez, wiped it, put it back on his nose and stared at
grandfather Grandfather was silent and stood still. The pharmacist was also silent. Silence
it became painful.

- Poshtovaya street, three! - the pharmacist suddenly shouted in anger and slammed
some disheveled thick book. - Three!

Grandfather and Vanya reached Pochtovaya Street just in time - because of the Oka
a high thunderstorm was coming. Lazy thunder stretched over the horizon, like
the sleepy strongman straightened his shoulders and reluctantly shook the ground. Gray ripples have gone
down the river. Silent lightning surreptitiously, but swiftly and strongly struck the meadows;
Far beyond the Glades, a haystack that they had lit was already burning. Large raindrops
fell onto the dusty road, and soon it became like the lunar surface:
each drop left a small crater in the dust.

Karl Petrovich was playing something sad and melodic on the piano when in the window
Grandfather's disheveled beard appeared.
A minute later Karl Petrovich was already angry.

“I’m not a veterinarian,” he said and slammed the lid of the piano. Immediately at
Thunder roared in the meadows. “All my life I’ve been treating children, not hares.”

“A child and a hare are all the same,” the grandfather muttered stubbornly. - All
one! Heal, show mercy! Our veterinarian has no jurisdiction over such matters. We have him
farrier This hare, one might say, is my savior: I owe my life to him,
I should show gratitude, but you say - quit!

A minute later, Karl Petrovich - an old man with gray ruffled eyebrows,
— Worried, I listened to my grandfather’s stumbling story.
Karl Petrovich eventually agreed to treat the hare. In the next morning
Grandfather went to the lake, and left Vanya with Karl Petrovich to go after the hare.

A day later, the entire Pochtovaya Street, overgrown with goose grass, already knew that
Karl Petrovich treats a hare that was burned in a terrible forest fire and saved
some old man. Two days later the whole small town already knew about it, and
the third day a tall young man in a felt hat came to Karl Petrovich,
identified himself as an employee of a Moscow newspaper and asked for a conversation about the hare.

The hare was cured. Vanya wrapped him in cotton rags and took him home. Soon
the story about the hare was forgotten, and only some Moscow professor for a long time
I tried to get my grandfather to sell him a hare. He even sent letters from
stamps for the answer. But the grandfather did not give up. Under his dictation, Vanya wrote
letter to the professor:

The hare is not corrupt, he is a living soul, let him live in freedom. I remain with this
Larion Malyavin.

...This fall I spent the night with Grandfather Larion on Lake Urzhenskoye. Constellations,
cold, like grains of ice, floated in the water. The dry reeds rustled. Ducks
They shivered in the thickets and quacked pitifully all night.

Grandfather couldn't sleep. He sat by the stove and mended a torn fishing net. After
he set the samovar - it immediately fogged up the windows in the hut and made the stars of fire
the dots turned into cloudy balls. Murzik was barking in the yard. He jumped into the darkness
he flashed his teeth and jumped back - he fought with the impenetrable October night. Hare
He slept in the hallway and occasionally in his sleep he loudly tapped his hind paw on the rotten floorboard.
We drank tea at night, waiting for the distant and hesitant dawn, and
Over tea, my grandfather finally told me the story about the hare.

In August, my grandfather went hunting on the northern shore of the lake. The forests stood
dry as gunpowder. Grandfather came across a little hare with a torn left ear. Grandfather shot at
him with an old gun tied with wire, but missed. The hare ran away.
Grandfather moved on. But suddenly he became alarmed: from the south, from Lopukhov,
there was a strong smell of smoke. The wind got stronger. The smoke was thickening, it was already wafting like a white veil.
through the forest, surrounded by bushes. It became difficult to breathe.

The grandfather realized that a forest fire had started and the fire was coming straight towards him. Wind
turned into a hurricane. The fire raced across the ground at an unheard of speed. According to
Grandfather, even a train could not escape such a fire. Grandfather was right: during
Hurricane fire went at a speed of thirty kilometers per hour.
Grandfather ran over the bumps, stumbled, fell, the smoke ate his eyes, and behind
a wide roar and crackling of flames could already be heard.

Death overtook the grandfather, grabbed him by the shoulders, and at that time from under his feet
Grandfather the hare jumped out. He ran slowly and dragged his hind legs. Then only
the grandfather noticed that the hare’s hair was burnt.

The grandfather was delighted with the hare, as if it were his own. Like an old forest dweller, grandfather
knew that animals sense where fire is coming from much better than humans, and always
are saved. They die only in those rare cases when fire surrounds them.
Grandfather ran after the hare. He ran, cried with fear and shouted: “Wait,
honey, don’t run so fast!”

The hare brought the grandfather out of the fire. When they ran out of the forest to the lake, the hare and grandfather
- both fell from fatigue. Grandfather picked up the hare and took it home. The hare had
Hind legs and belly are singed. Then his grandfather cured him and kept him with him.

“Yes,” said the grandfather, looking at the samovar as angrily, as if the samovar
I was to blame for everything - yes, but before that hare, it turns out that I was very guilty,
nice man.

- What have you done wrong?

- And you go out, look at the hare, at my savior, then you will know. Take it
flashlight!

I took the lantern from the table and went out into the hallway. The hare was sleeping. I leaned over him with
with a flashlight and noticed that the hare’s left ear was torn. Then I understood everything.

The name of this man is known to everyone, but only a few know his biography in detail. In fact, Paustovsky’s biography is an amazing pattern of intricacies of mother fate. Well, let's get to know him better.

Origin and education

Paustovsky's biography begins in the family of railway statistician Georgiy. The man had Polish-Turkish-Ukrainian roots. It is worth saying that the Paustovsky family on the father’s side is connected with the famous figure of the Ukrainian Cossacks Petro Sagaidachny. George himself did not consider himself special in origin and emphasized that his ancestors were ordinary working people. Grandfather Kostya was not only a Cossack, but also a Chumak. It was he who instilled in the boy a love for everything Ukrainian, including folklore. The boy's maternal grandmother was Polish and an ardent Catholic.

The family raised four children. Kostya grew up with three brothers and a sister. The boy began his studies at the First Kyiv Classical Gymnasium. Konstantin later said that his favorite subject was geography. In 1906, the family broke up, which is why the boy had to live in Bryansk, where he continued his studies. A year later, the young man returned to Kyiv, re-entered the gymnasium and began to earn his own living by tutoring. After graduating from high school, he entered the Imperial University of St. Vladimir, where he studied for 2 years at the Faculty of Historical and Philological Sciences.

World War I

Paustovsky's biography would not be complete without describing the tragic background of the terrible events of the First World War. With its beginning, Kostya moves to Moscow to live with his mother. In order not to interrupt his studies, he transferred to Moscow University, which he was soon forced to quit and get a job as a tram conductor. Later he worked as an orderly on field trains.

Two of his brothers died on the same day. Konstantin returned to Moscow, but soon left there again. During this difficult period of his life, Paustovsky, whose biography even then contained several dark spots (family breakdown, death of brothers, loneliness), worked at metallurgical plants in different cities of Ukraine. When the February Revolution began, he again moved to the capital of Russian cities, where he got a job as a reporter.

At the end of 1918, Paustovsky was drafted into the army of Hetman Skoropadsky, and a little later (after a quick change of power) - into the Red Army. The regiment was soon disbanded: fate did not want to see Konstantin as a military man.

1930s

Paustovsky's biography in the 1930s was the most vivid. At this time he works as a journalist and travels a lot throughout the country. It is these travels that will become the basis for the writer’s creativity in the future. He also actively publishes in various magazines and is successful. He spent a lot of time in the village of Solotcha near Ryazan, observed the construction of the Berezniki chemical plant and at the same time wrote the story “Kara-Bugaz”. When the book was published, I decided to leave the service forever and become a writer by vocation.

Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky (the biography of the writer is described in this article) spends 1932 in Petrozavodsk, where he writes the stories “Lake Front” and “The Fate of Charles Lonseville.” Also, the result of this fruitful period was a large-scale essay called “Onega Plant”.

It was followed by the essays “Underwater Winds” (after a trip to the Volga and Caspian Sea) and “Mikhailovsky Groves” (after visiting Pskov, Mikhailovsk and Novgorod).

The Great Patriotic War

Paustovsky's brief biography continues with a description of the events of the Great Patriotic War. The writer had to become a war correspondent. He spent almost all his time on the line of fire, in the center of important events. He soon returned to Moscow, where he continued to work for the needs of the war. After some time, he was released from service to write a play for the Moscow Art Theater.

The whole family is evacuated to Alma-Ata. During this period, Konstantin wrote the novel “Smoke of the Fatherland”, the play “Until the Heart Stops” and a number of other stories. The play was staged by the Chamber Theater, which was evacuated to Barnaul. The process was led by A. Tairov. Paustovsky had to participate in the process, so he spent some time in Belokurikha and Barnaul. The premiere of the play was scheduled for April. By the way, its theme was the fight against fascism.

Confession

The biography of Georgievich Paustovsky is closely connected with the famous collection “Literary Moscow”, because he was one of its compilers. The man spends the 1950s in Moscow and Tarusa. He devoted about ten years of his life to working in them. Gorky, where he led seminars on prose. He also headed the department of literary excellence.

Around the mid-1950s, Paustovsky gained worldwide recognition. How did it happen? The writer traveled a lot in European countries (Bulgaria, Sweden, Turkey, Greece, Poland, Italy, etc.), lived for some time on the island. Capri. During this time he became much more popular, his work resonated in the souls of foreigners. In 1965, he could have received the Nobel Prize in Literature if M. Sholokhov had not preceded him.

The following fact from the life of the Russian writer is interesting. Konstantin Paustovsky, whose brief biography is discussed in the article, was one of the favorite writers of Marlene Dietrich, who in her book mentioned how she was amazed by Konstantin’s stories and dreamed of getting to know his other works. It is known that Marlene came on tour to Russia and dreamed of meeting the Paustovskys in person. At that time, the writer was in the hospital after a heart attack.

Before one of the performances, Marlene was informed that Konstantin Georgievich was in the hall, which she could not believe until the very end. When the performance was over, Paustovsky went up to the stage. Marlene, not knowing what to say, simply knelt down in front of him. After some time, the writer died, and M. Dietrich wrote that she met him too late.

Family

We talked about the writer’s father above. Let's talk about his large family in more detail. Mom Maria is buried at the Baikovo cemetery in Kyiv (like her sister). V. Paustovsky devoted almost his entire life to collecting letters from his parents, rare documents and other information in order to transfer it to the museum.

The writer's first wife was Ekaterina Zagorskaya. She was practically an orphan, since her priest father died before the baby was born, and her mother died a couple of years later. On the side of the girl’s mother, she had family ties with the famous archaeologist V. Gorodtsov. Konstantin met Catherine during the First World War, when he worked as a nurse at the front. The wedding took place in the summer of 1916 in Ryazan. Paustovsky once wrote that he loved her more than his mother and himself. In 1925, the couple had a son, Vadim.

In 1936, the family broke up, as Konstantin became interested in Valery Valishevskaya. Catherine did not create a scandal for him, but calmly, albeit reluctantly, gave him a divorce. Valeria was Polish by nationality and the sister of the talented artist Zygmund Waliszewski.

In 1950, Konstantin married Tatyana Evteeva, who worked as an actress in the theater. Meyerhold. In this marriage, a boy was born, Alexey, whose fate was very tragic: at the age of 26 he died from a drug overdose.

Last years

In 1966, Konstantin, together with other cultural figures, put his signature on a document addressed to L. Brezhnev against the rehabilitation of I. Stalin. Unfortunately, these were the last years of the writer, which were preceded by prolonged asthma and several heart attacks.

Death occurred in the summer of 1968 in the capital of Russia. In his will, Paustovsky asked to be buried in one of the Tarusa cemeteries: the writer’s will was fulfilled. A year before, Konstantin Georgievich was awarded the title of “Honorary Citizen of the City of Tarusa.”

A little about creativity

What gift did Paustovsky have? The biography is equally valuable for children and adults, because this writer could conquer not only the hearts of critics, stars and ordinary readers, but also the younger generation. He wrote his first works while still a student at the gymnasium. The stories and plays he created during his travels around Europe brought him great popularity. The autobiographical “Tale of Life” is considered the most significant work.

We encounter Paustovsky’s work while still studying at school. I would still like to plunge at least a little into the biography of this amazing and talented person. He described it in parts in his autobiographical trilogy “The Tale of Life.” In general, all of Paustovsky’s works are based on his personal life observations and experiences, and therefore, when reading them, you become acquainted with many interesting facts. His fate was not easy, like every citizen of that complex and controversial era. He is most revered as the author of numerous children's stories and fiction.

Biography

Paustovsky's biography began on May 31, 1892, when the future writer was born. He was born in Moscow, in the family of a railway superintendent, Georgy Maksimovich Paustovsky. Mom's name was Maria Grigorievna Paustovskaya. On his father's side, his ancestry leads to the ancient family of the Cossack hetman P.K. Sagaidachny. His grandfather was a Cossack Chumak, who instilled in his grandson a love for his national folklore and nature. My grandfather fought in the Russian-Turkish war, was captured, from where he returned with his wife, Turkish Fatima, who was baptized in Russia under the name Honorata. Therefore, both Ukrainian-Cossack and Turkish blood flows in the writer’s veins.

Life and art

He spent almost his entire childhood in Ukraine, and in 1898 his entire family moved there. Paustovsky always thanked fate for the fact that he grew up in Ukraine; it became for him that bright lyre with which the writer never parted.

The Paustovsky family had four children. When his father abandoned his family, Konstantin was forced to leave school because he needed to help his mother.

Paustovsky's further biography shows that he nevertheless received an education, having studied at the classical gymnasium in Kyiv. Afterwards, in the same city, he entered the university at the Faculty of History and Philology. After some time, he transferred to Moscow University and studied there at the Faculty of Law, thereby supplementing his education. But then the First World War began.

Paustovsky: stories

The writer begins his work with the story “On the Water”, later it will be published in the Kiev magazine “Lights”. During the war, Paustovsky had the right not to take part in it, since his two older brothers were already at war. Therefore, he remained to work in the rear and became a counselor on a tram, then an orderly on a military train, on which he traveled through Belarus and Poland in 1915.

After the revolution of 1917, he begins his career. During the same period, the civil war begins, and the writer first finds himself in the ranks of the Petliurites, but then goes over to the side of the Red Army.

After the war, Konstantin Paustovsky travels through the south of Russia. Lives in Odessa for some time, working for the newspaper “Sailor”. There he met such famous writers as I. Babel, S. Slavin, I. Ilf. Works at factories in Taganrog, Yekaterinoslavl, Yuzovsk. And at the same time he wrote his first voluminous story, “Romantics,” which, however, would not be published until 1930.

And then he moves to the Caucasus and lives in Sukhumi, Batumi, Baku, Tbilisi and Yerevan. In 1923, he was already in Moscow, where he got a job as editor of ROSTA. Paustovsky's works began to be widely published here.

In 1928, a collection of his works, “Oncoming Ships,” was published. In the 30s, Paustovsky actively published in the Pravda newspaper and other magazines.

Paustovsky: stories

But he will continue his travels and travel around the country to reflect her life in his works, which will bring him fame as a writer.

In 1931, the famous story “Kara-Bugaz”, written by Paustovsky, was published. One after another, stories begin to emerge from his pen. These are “The Fate of Charles Lonseville”, and “Colchis”, and “The Black Sea”, and “The Northern Tale”, etc. He will also write many other works about the Meshchera region and the stories “Constellation of Hound Dogs”, “Orest Kiprensky ", "Taras Shevchenko", "Isaac Levitan" and others.

During the Second World War he worked as a military correspondent. After its completion, he travels between Moscow and Tarus (Kaluga region). He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and the Order of Lenin. In the 50s he went on a tour of Europe.

Paustovsky died in Moscow in 1968, on July 14. However, he was buried in the cemetery in Tarusa.

Writer's personal life

Konstantin Paustovsky met his first wife in Crimea, and her name was Ekaterina Stepanovna Gorodtsova. They got married in 1916. They had a son, Vadim, but twenty years later the couple broke up.

His second wife, Valishevskaya-Navashina Valeria Vladimirovna, was the sister of a famous Polish artist. They got married in the late 30s, but after quite a long time there was a divorce again.

Paustovsky's biography shows that he also had a third wife - a very young and beautiful actress Tatyana Alekseevna Evteeva-Arbuzova, who gave him a son, Alexei.

Writer's statements

Any statement about the language of the writer Paustovsky suggests that he was a great master of the Russian word, with the help of which he could “sketch” magnificent landscapes. Thus, he instilled in children and taught them to see the beauty that surrounds them. Konstantin Paustovsky also greatly influenced the development of Soviet prose.

For the story “Telegram,” the movie star herself publicly knelt before him and kissed his hand. He was even nominated for the Nobel Prize, which Sholokhov eventually received.

It is very interesting where he, for example, said that by a person’s attitude towards his native language one can accurately judge not only his cultural level, but also clearly imagine his civic position. It is impossible not to agree with his saying, in which he said that there is nothing in our lives that could not be conveyed in Russian words. And here he is right: in fact, Russian is the richest language in the world.

Memory of descendants

Paustovsky’s biography is such that he had a fairly principled position in relation to the authorities, but he did not have to serve time in camps and prisons; on the contrary, the authorities presented him with state awards.

In honor of the writer’s memory, library No. 2 in Odessa was named after him, and in the same city in 2010 the first monument to him was unveiled. In 2012, on August 24, another monument was unveiled in Tarusa, on the banks of the Oka River, where he is depicted together with his beloved dog named Grozny. The streets of such cities as Moscow, Odessa, Kyiv, Tarus, Taganrog, Rostov-on-Don, Dnepropetrovsk are named after the writer.

In 1958, his six-volume collection of complete works was published with a circulation of 225 thousand copies.