Mom's Siberian portrait of a writer. School encyclopedia

On November 6 (October 25), 1852, Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin-Sibiryak (real name Mamin) was born - a great Russian prose writer and playwright.

There is no such person in Russia who has not heard the name of Mamin-Sibiryak and has not read at least one of his books.

In the post-revolutionary years, this name was covered with such a thick layer of “textbook gloss” that many do not know either the real fate of the famous writer or many of his works. As soon as you say “Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin-Sibiryak”, a famous photograph appears before your eyes, where he looks happy with life, a respectable person, in a rich fur coat, in an astrakhan fur hat.

According to the recollections of friends, the writer was of average height, but of strong build, charming, with beautiful black eyes, and an invariable pipe. Despite his temper, he was distinguished by his kindness and sociability, was known as an excellent storyteller, and was often the life of the party. At the same time, he did not tolerate injustice, he was a straightforward, integral person, and did not know how to lie or pretend. Like any good person, “old people and children loved him and were not afraid of animals.” The colorful figure of Mamin the Sibiryak was so noticeable that Ilya Repin himself painted one of the Cossacks from him for his famous painting.

However, the personal fate of Mamin-Sibiryak was difficult and unhappy. Only early childhood and fifteen months of a happy marriage can be called prosperous. The creative path of the famous writer was not easy either. At the end of his life, he wrote to publishers that his works “will amount to 100 volumes, but only 36 have been published.” There was no literary success that he deserved, and the family drama of the Russian prose writer completely resembles the plot of a Mexican TV series...

Childhood and youth

Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin was born in the village of Visim (Visimo-Shaitansky plant, owned by the Demidovs), 40 kilometers from Nizhny Tagil, on the border of Europe and Asia. The father of the future writer is a hereditary priest. The family is large (four children), friendly, hard-working (“I have never seen my father or mother without work”), and reading. The family had a large library: they ordered magazines and books from St. Petersburg. The mother loved to read aloud to the children. Dmitry's favorite book as a child was “The Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” (Aksakov).

The writer said about his early childhood and his parents: “There was not a single bitter memory, not a single childhood reproach.” Hundreds of amazing letters from Dmitry Narkisovich to his parents have been preserved, where he writes “Mom” and “Dad” always with a capital letter. But the time had come to study seriously, and the poor priest Mamin did not have money for the gymnasium. Dmitry and his older brother Nikolai were taken to the Yekaterinburg Theological School (Bursa), where their father had once studied. It was a difficult time for Mitya. He considered the years in the bursa wasted and even harmful: “... the school did not give anything to my mind, I did not read a single book... and did not acquire any knowledge.” (Later Pavel Petrovich Bazhov graduated from the same school).

After theological school, the son of a priest had a direct path to the Perm Theological Seminary. There, Dmitry Mamin began his first literary work. But he felt “cramped” in the seminary, and the future writer did not complete the course. In 1872, Mamin entered the veterinary department of the St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy. In 1876, without graduating from the academy, he transferred to the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University. It was extremely difficult for him to study; his father could not send money. The student often went hungry and was poorly dressed. Dmitry earned his living by writing for newspapers. And then there is a serious disease - tuberculosis. He had to quit his studies and return home to the Urals (1878), but to the city of Nizhnyaya Salda, where his family moved. Father is dying soon. Dmitry takes care of the family.

Singer of the Urals

Dmitry Narkisovich had to work a lot, give lessons: “I wandered around private lessons for three years, 12 hours a day.” He wrote articles and educated himself. Moved to Yekaterinburg. Wrote books. The writer walked many roads in the Urals, rafted along the Ural rivers, met many interesting people, studied archives, and was engaged in archaeological excavations. He knew the history of the Urals, economics, nature, folk tales and legends. “Ural! Ural! The body is stone, the heart is fiery” - this was his favorite expression.

The future “classic” signed his first journalistic works by D. Sibiryak. In those days, everything that was beyond the Ural ridge was called Siberia. He began signing his novels with the double surname Mamin-Sibiryak. Now he would call himself Mom’s Uralian.

Recognition did not come to the writer immediately. For 9 years he sent his works to different editors and was always rejected. Only in 1881-1882 a series of essays by D. Sibiryak “from the Urals to Moscow” was published in the Moscow newspaper “Russkie Vedomosti”. The talented provincial was noticed not by publishers, but by radical journalists. The St. Petersburg censored magazine “Delo” published a number of his essays about the Ural land, and subsequently the most famous novel “Privalov’s Millions” was published. However, for a serious writer to be published in Delo in the 1980s was not a great honor: the magazine was living out its last days and took any material allowed by the censorship (including pulp novels). The works of Mamin-Sibiryak deserved better. However, this publication allowed the talented writer to finally “reach out” to the capital’s publishing houses and become famous not only in the Urals, but also in the European part of the great country.

Mamin-Sibiryak revealed the Urals to the world with all its riches and history. A separate and serious conversation needs to be had about his novels, which will not fit into the scope of this essay. The novels required a huge amount of work from Mamin-Sibiryak. The writer did not have assistants or secretaries: he had to rewrite and edit manuscripts himself many times, make insertions, and perform technical processing of texts. Mamin-Sibiryak was distinguished by his enormous ability to work as a writer and was talented in many literary genres: novels, stories, short stories, fairy tales, legends, essays. The pearls of his work - “Privalov's Millions”, “Mountain Nest”, “Gold”, “Three Ends” - made a huge contribution to the development of Russian literature and the Russian literary language.

About the language of these works, Chekhov wrote: “Mamin’s words are all real, but he speaks them himself and doesn’t know others.”

Life at a turning point

Dmitry Narkisovich was approaching his fortieth birthday. Comparative prosperity has arrived. Royalties from publishing novels gave him the opportunity to buy a house in the center of Yekaterinburg for his mother and sister. He married Maria Alekseeva in a civil marriage, who left her husband and three children for him. She was older than him, a well-known public figure, and an assistant in his writing work.

It would seem that he has everything to live a calm, happy life, but Dmitry Narkisovich began a “midlife” crisis, followed by complete spiritual discord. His work was not noticed by metropolitan critics. For the reading public, he still remained a little-known “talented provincial.” The originality of the creativity of the Ural “nugget” did not find proper understanding among readers. In 1889, Mamin-Sibiryak wrote in one of his letters to a friend:

“... I gave them a whole region with people, nature and all the riches, but they don’t even look at my gift.”

I was tormented by dissatisfaction with myself. The marriage was not very successful. There were no children. It seemed like life was ending. Dmitry Narkisovich started drinking.

But for the new theater season of 1890, a beautiful young actress Maria Moritsevna Heinrich (by husband and stage - Abramova) arrived from St. Petersburg. They couldn’t help but get acquainted: Maria brought Mamin-Sibiryak a gift from Korolenko (his portrait). They fell in love with each other. She is 25 years old, he is almost 40. Everything was not easy. The writer was tormented by his debt to his wife. The husband did not give Maria a divorce. Mamin-Sibiryak's family and friends were against this union. There was gossip and gossip in the city. The actress was not allowed to work, and the writer had no life. The lovers had no choice but to flee to St. Petersburg.

On March 20, 1892, Maria gave birth to a daughter, but she herself died the next day after a difficult birth. Dmitry Narkisovich almost committed suicide. From the shock he experienced, he cried at night, went to pray at St. Isaac's Cathedral, and tried to drown his grief with vodka. From letters to my sister: “I have one thought about Marusya... I go for a walk so that I can talk loudly with Marusya.” From a letter to his mother: “... happiness flashed by like a bright comet, leaving a heavy and bitter aftertaste... Sad, difficult, lonely. Our girl, Elena, remained in my arms - all my happiness.”

"Alyonushka's Tales"

Elena-Alyonushka was born a sick child (cerebral palsy). The doctors said, “I’m not going to live.” But the father, the father’s friends, the nanny-teacher - “Aunt Olya” (Olga Frantsevna Guvale later became the wife of Mamin-Sibiryak) pulled Alyonushka out of the other world. While Alyonushka was little, her father sat by her crib day and night. No wonder they called her “father’s daughter.” We can say that Mamin-Sibiryak accomplished the feat of fatherhood. Rather, he accomplished three feats: he found the strength to survive, did not let his child disappear, and began to write again.

The father told the girl fairy tales. At first he told those that he knew, then, when they ended, he began to compose his own. On the advice of friends, Mamin-Sibiryak began to record and collect them. Alyonushka, like all children, had a good memory, so the writer-father could not repeat himself.

In 1896, Alyonushkin’s Tales were published as a separate edition. Mamin-Sibiryak wrote: “...The publication is very nice. This is my favorite book - it was written by love itself, and therefore it will outlive everything else.” These words turned out to be prophetic. His “Alyonushka’s Tales” are republished annually and translated into different languages. Much has been written about them; they are associated with folklore traditions and the writer’s ability to entertainingly present to a child important moral concepts, especially the feeling of kindness. It is no coincidence that the language of “Alyonushka’s Tales” was called “Mother’s Syllable” by contemporaries. Kuprin wrote about them: “These tales are prose poems, more artistic than Turgenev’s.”

During these years, Mamin-Sibiryak wrote to the editor: “If I were rich, I would devote myself specifically to children’s literature. After all, it’s happiness to write for children.”

Mamin-Sibiryak with her daughter

You just have to imagine the state of mind in which he wrote these fairy tales! The fact is that Dmitry Narkisovich did not have any rights to his child. Alyonushka was considered “the illegitimate daughter of the bourgeois Abramova,” and Maria Moritsevna’s first husband, out of revenge, did not give permission for her adoption. Mamin-Sibiryak reached despair and was even going to kill Abramov. Only ten years later, thanks to the efforts of the writer’s wife, Olga Frantsevna, permission was obtained.

“Happiness is writing for children”

Mamin-Sibiryak knew this happiness long before Alyonushka’s Tales. Even in Yekaterinburg, the first short story-essay for children, “The Conquest of Siberia,” was written (and he has about 150 children’s works in total!). The writer sent his stories to the capital’s magazines “Children’s Reading”, “Rodnik” and others.

Everyone knows the fairy tale "The Gray Neck". Together with Alyonushka’s Tales, it was included in the collection “Fairy Tales of Russian Writers” (in the “Library of World Literature for Children” series). When the fairy tale was written, it had a sad ending, but later Mamin-Sibiryak added a chapter about saving Gray Neck. The tale has been published many times - both separately and in collections. Many fairy tales were not published until recent years. Now they are returning to readers. Now we can read “Confession of the old St. Petersburg cat Vaska,” written back in 1903, and others.

From early childhood, everyone knows the stories of D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak: “Emelya the Hunter”, “Winter Quarters on Studenoy”, “Spit”, “The Rich Man and Eremka”. Some of these stories were highly appreciated during the writer's lifetime. “Emelya the Hunter” was awarded the Prize of the Pedagogical Society in St. Petersburg, and in 1884 received the International Prize. The story “Winter quarters on Studenoy” was awarded the Gold Medal of the St. Petersburg Literacy Committee (1892).

Legends in the works of Mamin-Sibiryak

The writer had a long-standing interest in folk legends, especially those created by the indigenous population of the Urals and Trans-Urals: the Bashkirs and Tatars. Previously, part of the indigenous population was called Kyrgyz (they are mentioned in the legends of Mamin-Sibiryak). In 1889, he wrote to the Society of Russian Literature: “I would like to start collecting songs, fairy tales, beliefs and other works of folk art,” and asked for permission to do this. The permit - “Open sheet” - was issued to Mamin-Sibiryak.

He wanted to write a historical tragedy about Khan Kuchum, but did not have time. I wrote only five legends. They were published as a separate book in 1898, which was later not reprinted. Some of the legends were included in the collected works of Mamin-Sibiryak, the most famous of which is “Ak-Bozat”. The legends have strong, bright heroes, their love for freedom is simply love. The legend “Maya” is clearly autobiographical, it contains the early death of the heroine, who left a small child, the endless grief of the main character, who loved his wife very much, and the consonance of the names - Maya, Maria. This is a personal song about bitter love, about longing for a deceased loved one.

Yuletide stories and tales of Mamin-Sibiryak

The son of a priest, a believer, Mamin-Sibiryak wrote Christmas stories and fairy tales for both adults and children. Naturally, they were not published after 1917. During the struggle against religion, it was impossible to link these works with the name of a democratic writer. Now they have begun to be published. In Christmas stories and fairy tales, Mamin-Sibiryak preaches the ideas of peace and harmony between people of different nationalities, different social classes, and different ages. They are written with humor and optimism.

Last period of life

The last years of the writer were especially difficult. He was sick a lot himself and was very worried about the fate of his daughter. He buried his closest friends: Chekhov, Gleb Uspensky, Stanyukovich, Garin-Mikhailovsky. They almost stopped printing it. On March 21 (fateful day for Mamin-Sibiryak), 1910, his mother dies. It was a huge loss for him. In 1911, the writer suffered from paralysis.

Shortly before his death, he wrote to a friend: “...The end is coming soon... I have nothing to regret in literature, she has always been a stepmother for me... Well, to hell with her, especially since she was intertwined with bitter need for me personally, which they don’t even talk about to their closest friends.”

The writer's anniversary was approaching: 60 years since his birth and 40 years of literary work. They remembered him and came to congratulate him. And Mamin-Sibiryak was in such a state that he could no longer hear anything. At 60 years old, he seemed like a decrepit old man with dull eyes. The anniversary was like a funeral service. They said good words: “the pride of Russian literature”, “an artist of words”... They presented a luxurious album with congratulations and wishes. This album also contained words about his works for children: “You opened your soul to our children. You understood and loved them, and they understood and loved you..."

But the “confession” came too late: Dmitry Narkisovich died six days later (November 1912). After his death, telegrams continued to arrive with congratulations on the anniversary. The capital's press did not notice the departure of Mamin-Sibiryak. Only in Yekaterinburg did friends and admirers of his talent gather for a funeral evening. Mamin-Sibiryak was buried next to his wife in the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.

Alyonushka's fate

Elena outlived her father by two years. After his death, she insisted on a trip to Yekaterinburg. I looked at the city, the surrounding area, and met my family. In her will, Elena Mamina wrote that after the death of the last owner, her father’s house would become a museum, “which I urgently ask to be established in this city and, if possible, in the bequeathed house or the house that will be built in its place.”

Her will was fulfilled: in the center of Yekaterinburg there is a wonderful Literary Quarter, which includes the preserved House of Mamin-Sibiryak (Pushkinskaya St., 27) with all the furnishings of those years, books, photographs, drawings and manuscripts of the writer.

Alyonushka died at the age of 22 from transient consumption in the fall of 1914, when the First World War was going on. All her archives, poems, drawings, and some of her father’s works were lost. Alyonushka was buried next to her parents. A year later, a monument was erected to all three. The words of Mamin-Sibiryak are carved on it: “To live a thousand lives, to suffer and rejoice in a thousand hearts - that’s where real life and real happiness are.”

Elena Shirokova

Recently, the site has increasingly responded to the same search query: “Why is the hero of the fairy tale D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak “Ak-Bozat” left his wife?”

The frequency and frightening regularity of this request first surprised us, then puzzled us: “Is it really only this global problem that worries the younger generation of the entire post-Soviet space today?” - we thought.

It turned out that this insoluble question torments only the victims of the current system of secondary education - schoolchildren and students, who, instead of reading Russian literature, today are offered ready-made answers to simple questions, as in a ballot paper (“yes”, “yes”, “no”, “yes” " - cross out what is necessary!). The imperfection of the Unified State Examination is aggravated by the absolute confidence of students that on the World Wide Web one can easily find solutions to all the insoluble problems that humanity has ever set itself.

We will not smash this enviable confidence to smithereens, for hope dies last. We will answer this question without using “too many letters”, so that the answer can be “powered” by every representative of the “Pepsi generation”, i.e. - in the spirit of the Unified State Examination test.

Question: “Why does the hero of the fairy tale D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak “Ak-Bozat” left his wife?”
Possible answers:

1. He fell in love with a woman from a neighbor's harem;
2. He was inflamed with passion for a mare named Ak-Bozat (diagnosed with bestiality);
3. The wife didn’t manage the house well, didn’t clean the tent and didn’t know how to milk mares, and spent all day on VKontakte.ru.

Now try, my dear users who basically don’t read anything, point your finger at the sky and choose the correct answer. We would also recommend that education officials who write similar tests on Russian literature do this. Their only goal is to turn Russian schoolchildren into stupid, obedient sheep, capable of choosing answer options already proposed by someone without much thought and tedious reading.

We advise all other students to turn to the original source and read the very worthy (not to be confused with the word “slop”!) literary text of the fairy tale by the Russian writer D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak. Reading “Ak-Bozat” will take no more than 10-15 minutes, which in any case is less time spent searching for a ready-made answer on the Internet.

So,

“Why is the hero of the fairy tale D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak “Ak-Bozat” left his wife?”
(opinion of the site’s authors familiar with the text “Ak-Bozat”)

The hero of the fairy tale Bukharbay, in the past a very wealthy man, through his own fault, lost (walked away, drank, went on a spree) all his fortune. The only thing he managed to save was a thoroughbred foal named Ak-Bozat (Star). For many years, Bukharbay raised his foal, and the mare Ak-Bozat became the main thing in his life: at the same time the memory of his father and mother, and hope for his own better future, an object of self-realization.

Hard work bears fruit: the daughter of a rich man pays attention to Bukharbay, whom Bukharbay himself likes. However, her father asks for Ak-Bozat as a dowry for his daughter! It would seem that a mare is a completely acceptable payment for family happiness with a loving wife.

However, the horse was stolen! And this happens precisely at the moment when Bukharbai “betrayed” his destiny - he agreed to exchange Ak-Bozat for family happiness, a home and material well-being. As a result, life without Ak-Bozat, without a dream that he once betrayed and lost forever, turned out to be unbearable for him. Therefore the hero leaves his wife(!) and sets off on the path to his guiding star - Ak-Bozat, the possession of which, as he understands, was the true meaning of his life.

Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin-Sibiryak (real nameMom's ; 1852-1912) - Russian prose writer and playwright.

Born into the family of a priest in the Visimo-Shaitansky Plant, now the village of Visim, Sverdlovsk region. He studied at the Perm Theological Seminary (1868-1872). In 1872 he entered the veterinary faculty of the St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy; Without graduating, he transferred to the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University. In 1877, due to poverty, he was forced to leave his studies and go to the Urals, where he remained until 1891. Then he lived in St. Petersburg and Tsarskoe Selo. He began publishing in 1875. The first work, “Secrets of the Green Forest,” is dedicated to the Urals.

In 1882, the second period of his literary activity began. Since the appearance of the essays from the mine life “Prospectors,” Mamin, who began to sign the pseudonym Sibiryak, attracted the attention of the public and critics and quickly gained fame. His Ural stories and essays are published: “At the turn of Asia”, “In the stones”, “We all eat bread”, “In thin souls”, “Scrofula”, “Fighters”, “Translator in the mines”, “Wild happiness”, “Abba”, “On Shikhan”, “Bashka”, “Thunderstorm”, “Blessed” and others. The author's style is already clearly outlined in them: the desire to depict nature and its influence on people, sensitivity to the changes taking place around them. On the one hand, the author depicted majestic nature full of harmony, on the other, human troubles and the difficult struggle for existence. The signature of Mamin-Sibiryak remained with the writer forever. But he signed many of his things, especially ethnographic articles, with the pseudonyms Bash-Kurt and Onik. In 1883, his first novel from factory life in the Urals appeared: “Privalov’s Millions.” The author characterizes working people, types, figures that are new in Russian literature. The second novel, “Mountain Nest” (1884), describes the mining region from different sides. Here Mamin expressed his idea of ​​elemental forces acting blindly in life. A natural continuation of “Mountain Nest” is the novel “On the Street,” where the action takes place in St. Petersburg. It shows the formation of capitalism, accompanied by the breakdown of the old way of life, previous ideals, ideological vacillations and searches among representatives of the intelligentsia. In the novel “Three Ends” (1890), the author talks about the life of schismatics in the Urals.

In 1891, Mamin-Sibiryak finally moved to St. Petersburg. His great novel “Bread” (1895) and the story “The Gordeev Brothers” date back to this time. With a novel, he completed a series of works depicting the Small Motherland, its morals, customs, social life, pre-reform and post-reform life. Many stories are dedicated to the same region. Mamin-Sibiryak also acts as a writer about children and for children. His collection “Children's Shadows” was a very great success. Understanding of child psychology is marked by “Alyonushka’s Tales” (1894-1896), the stories “Emelya the Hunter” (1884), “Winter Quarters on Studenoy” (1892), “The Gray Neck” (1893) and others. Mamin-Sibiryak is the author of the novel “Gold”, stories and essays “Parental Blood”, “Flying”, “Forest”, “Poison”, “The Last Requirement”, “Winch”, and the collection “About the Masters”. He also wrote dramatic works, legends, and historical stories. Some works are marked by features of naturalism. The author described his first steps in literature, accompanied by attacks of acute need and despair, in the novel “Characters from the Life of Pepko” (1894). It reveals the writer’s worldview, the principles of his faith, views, ideas; altruism coexists with disgust for human ill will, for brute force, pessimism - with love for life and longing for its imperfections.
The artistic talent of Mamin-Sibiryak was highly appreciated by N. S. Leskov (1831-1895), A. P. Chekhov (1860-1904), I. A. Bunin (1870-1953).

Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin*, known to us under the pseudonym Mamin-Sibiryak, was born on November 6, 1852 in the Visimo-Shaitansky plant (now the village of Visim near Nizhny Tagil). My mother’s family were hereditary priests. Father, Narkis Matveevich Mamin, served as rector in the St. Nicholas Church in the village of Visim. At the same time, together with his wife, he taught at a local parish school, but at the same time was a member of the Ural Society of Natural History Lovers. The mother of the future writer, nee Anna Semenovna Stepanova, is the daughter of a deacon. Dmitry became the second child of Mom’s 4 children; he had 2 more brothers and 1 sister.

Mitya was educated at home, then studied at the Visim school for children of workers.

The parents wanted their son to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors. Therefore, in 1866 they sent the boy to the Yekaterinburg Theological School. He stayed there until 1868, then moved to the Perm Theological Seminary. In Perm, the young man became interested in literature.

In the spring of 1871, the young man left for St. Petersburg and entered the Medical-Surgical Academy, the veterinary department, and later transferred to medicine. After 3 years, Mamin enrolled in the natural sciences department of St. Petersburg University, where he studied for another 2 years. But his studies did not end there either. Since 1876, the young man studied at the law faculty of the university, however, he did not complete this course; he was forced to interrupt his studies due to financial difficulties and a sharp deterioration in his health - Dmitry was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The disease was caught at the initial stage, thanks to which he was completely cured.

Throughout his St. Petersburg years, Dmitry wrote short reports and stories for metropolitan newspapers. Moreover, it began to be published in 1872.

In 1877, Dmitry Narkisovich returned to his parents in Nizhnyaya Salda, where they then lived. In the summer of the same year, at a picnic, the young man met the wife of a local engineer, 30-year-old mother of 3 children, Maria Yakimovna Alekseeva. Dmitry fell in love. The woman reciprocated. The romance began.

Maria Yakimovna was a fairly wealthy lady; her father held a high position at the Demidov factories. In 1878, the woman left her husband and, under the pretext that she intended to give her children a good education, bought herself a house in Yekaterinburg and moved there with her two sons and daughter. At the same time, Dmitry Narkisovich also moved in with her, fortunately Mom’s father died and no one could prevent fornication. A little later, the entire Mamin family moved to Yekaterinburg. Maria Yakimovna and Dmitry Narkisovich lived in sin for 12 years. Alekseeva became her lover’s first adviser in his work. It was during those years that Mamin wrote the great novel “Privalov’s Millions.”

Dmitry Narkisovich traveled a lot around the Urals, studied literature on history, economics, and ethnography. He made his living from journalism, but was mainly supported by Maria Yakimovna. In 1881–1882, the writer published a series of travel essays “From the Urals to Moscow” and published them in metropolitan publications under the pseudonym D. Sibiryak. The pseudonym was automatically added to the author's surname and the result was the writer Mamin-Sibiryak.

In 1883, “Privalov’s Millions” was published in the magazine “Delo”. A second novel soon followed, “Mountain Nest.” After its release, Dmitry Narkisovich gained fame as an outstanding realist writer. Using the fees received, Mamin-Sibiryak bought a house in Yekaterinburg for his mother and brothers.

In the fall of 1890, Dmitry Narkisovich fell in love with the daughter of the Yekaterinburg photographer Heinrich, Maria Moritsevna Abramova. She was an actress and married to actor Abramov. Maria did not live with her husband and traveled with theater troupes around Russia.

The stormy love affair of the writer and actress ended with Mamin-Sibiryak’s breakup with Alekseeva and the lovers moving to St. Petersburg. On the eve of the breakup, the writer managed to publish his third novel, “Three Ends,” which was dedicated to Alekseeva.

Since the first husband did not give Abramova a divorce, she and Dmitry Narkisovich lived in an illegal marriage. On April 4, 1892, Maria Moritsevna gave birth to a daughter and died the next day. The girl was named Elena, affectionately called Alyonushka. He was an unfortunate child, seriously ill from birth. Alyonushka suffered from the dance of St. Vitta – her face was constantly twitching, convulsions occurred.

Dmitry Narkisovich was shocked by the death of his beloved woman. He set himself the goal of raising his sick daughter and devoted the rest of his life to her.

In 1894, the writer published his first work for children - the famous fairy tale "Grey Neck" about a duck with a broken wing. In Gray Neck he saw his own little sick daughter. Created in 1894–1896, “Alyonushka’s Tales” finally secured Dmitry Narkisovich’s fame as a great storyteller.

In 1900, the writer legally married for the first time - to the teacher of his daughter Olga Frantsevna Guvala.

The main trouble for Mamin-Sibiryak was the illegal birth of a girl. From the end of 1901, the writer fought for her adoption. Alyonushka's father was recorded as Maria Moritsovna's husband. After receiving his refusal from the child, a trial was held and in March 1902 the girl became the legal daughter of Dmitry Narkisovich.

Of course, all these years Mamin-Sibiryak did not abandon novelism; he composed and published the novels “Bread”, “Characters from the Life of Pepko” and “Shooting Stars”. The Ural Stories were very popular. However, all these works did not reach the heights of “Privalov’s Millions”, created under the supervision of Maria Yakimovna.

In 1911, the writer had a stroke and was partially paralyzed. Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin-Sibiryak died on November 15, 1912 in St. Petersburg. He was buried next to his wife in the churchyard of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. A year and a half later, in the fall of 1914, his Alyonushka died of transient consumption. The girl found peace next to her parents. In the 1950s, the remains of the Mamin-Sibiryak family were reburied at the Volkov cemetery in Leningrad.

_____________________

* The surname comes either from the Tatar name - MamIn or from the Bashkir name - MamIn, so it was originally pronounced with an emphasis on the last syllable - MamIn.

ALENUSHKIN'S TALES

E. Permyakov. Alyonushka's tales. Staging.

GRAY NECK

I. Medvedeva, T. Shishova. Gray Neck. Staging.

G. Berezko. Gray neck. Scenario.

Beat, drum, ta-ta! tra-ta-ta! Play, pipes: work! tu-ru-ru!.. Let's get all the music here - today is Vanka's birthday!.. Dear guests, you are welcome... Hey, everyone, get here! Tra-ta-ta! Tru-ru-ru!

Vanka walks around in a red shirt and says:

Brothers, you are welcome... As many treats as you like. Soup made from the freshest wood chips; cutlets from the best, purest sand; pies made from multi-colored pieces of paper; and what tea! From the best boiled water. You are welcome... Music, play!..

I

One fine winter day, a crowd of men who had arrived on sleighs stopped by the river, in a dense forest. The contractor walked around the entire site and said:

Chop here, brothers... The spruce forest is excellent. Each tree will be a hundred years old...

He took the ax and knocked the butt on the trunk of the nearest spruce. The magnificent tree seemed to groan, and lumps of fluffy snow rolled from its shaggy green branches. Somewhere at the top a squirrel flashed, looking with curiosity at the extraordinary guests; and a loud echo echoed throughout the entire forest, as if all these green giants, covered in snow, were speaking at once. The echo died down to a distant whisper, as if the trees were asking each other: who came? For what?..

Well, this old lady is no good... - added the contractor, tapping the standing spruce with a huge hollow with his butt. - She's half rotten.

Bye-bye-bye...

One of Alyonushka’s eyes is asleep, the other is watching; One ear of Alyonushka is sleeping, the other is listening.

Sleep, Alyonushka, sleep, beauty, and dad will tell fairy tales. It seems that everyone is here: the Siberian cat Vaska, the shaggy village dog Postoiko, the gray Little Mouse, the Cricket behind the stove, the motley Starling in a cage, and the bully Rooster.

Whatever you want, it was amazing! And the most amazing thing was that this was repeated every day. Yes, as soon as they put a pot of milk and a clay pan with oatmeal on the stove in the kitchen, that’s how it begins.

At first they stand as if nothing is happening, and then the conversation begins:

I am Milk...

And I am oatmeal porridge!

At first the conversation goes quietly, in a whisper, and then Kashka and Molochko gradually begin to get excited.

The first autumn cold, from which the grass turned yellow, brought all the birds into great alarm. Everyone began to prepare for the long journey, and everyone had such a serious, worried look. Yes, it is not easy to fly over a space of several thousand miles... How many poor birds will be exhausted along the way, how many will die from various accidents - in general there was something to seriously think about.

A serious large bird, like swans, geese and ducks, prepared for the journey with an important air, aware of the difficulty of the upcoming feat; and most of all the noise, fussing and fussing was made by small birds, such as sandpipers, phalaropes, dunlins, dunnies, and plovers. They had been gathering in flocks for a long time and were moving from one bank to another along the shallows and swamps with such speed, as if someone had thrown a handful of peas. The little birds had such a big job...

How fun it was in the summer!.. Oh, how fun! It’s hard to even tell everything in order... There were thousands of flies. They fly, buzz, have fun... When little Mushka was born, she spread her wings, and she also began to have fun. So much fun, so much fun that you can’t tell. The most interesting thing was that in the morning they opened all the windows and doors to the terrace - whichever window you want, go through that window and fly.

What a kind creature man is,” little Mushka marveled, flying from window to window. - These windows were made for us, and they open them for us too. Very good, and most importantly - fun...

Vorobey Vorobeich and Ersh Ershovich lived in great friendship. Every day in the summer, Sparrow Vorobeich flew to the river and shouted:

Hey brother, hello!.. How are you?

It’s okay, we live little by little,” answered Ersh Ershovich. - Come visit me. My brother, it’s good in deep places... The water is quiet, there’s as much water weed as you want. I'll treat you to frog eggs, worms, water boogers...

Thank you brother! I would love to go visit you, but I’m afraid of water. It’s better if you fly to visit me on the roof... I, brother, will treat you with berries - I have a whole garden, and then we’ll get a crust of bread, and oats, and sugar, and a live mosquito. You love sugar, don't you?

This happened at midday, when all the mosquitoes hid from the heat in the swamp. Komar Komarovich - his long nose snuggled under a wide leaf and fell asleep. He sleeps and hears a desperate cry:

Oh, fathers!.. oh, carraul!..

Komar Komarovich jumped out from under the sheet and also shouted:

What happened?.. What are you yelling at?

And the mosquitoes fly, buzz, squeak - you can’t make out anything.

Oh, fathers!.. A bear came to our swamp and fell asleep. As soon as he lay down in the grass, he immediately crushed five hundred mosquitoes, and as soon as he breathed, he swallowed a whole hundred. Oh, trouble, brothers! We barely managed to get away from him, otherwise he would have crushed everyone...

A bunny was born in the forest and was afraid of everything. A twig will crack somewhere, a bird will fly up, a lump of snow will fall from a tree - the bunny is in hot water.

The bunny was afraid for a day, afraid for two, afraid for a week, afraid for a year; and then he grew up big, and suddenly he got tired of being afraid.

I'm not afraid of anyone! - he shouted to the whole forest. - I’m not afraid at all, that’s all!

The old hares gathered, the little bunnies came running, the old female hares tagged along - everyone listened to how the Hare boasted - long ears, slanting eyes, a short tail - they listened and did not believe their own ears. There has never been a time when the hare was not afraid of anyone.

A fairy tale about the glorious King Pea and his beautiful daughters Princess Kutafya and Princess Pea.

Soon the fairy tale is told, but not soon the deed is done. Fairy tales are told to old men and old women for consolation, to young people for instruction, and to little children for obedience. You can’t erase a word from a fairy tale, but what has happened has become what it is. As soon as a slanting hare ran past, he listened with his long ear, a firebird flew past and looked with a fiery eye... The green forest is noisy and humming, grass-ant with azure flowers is spread out like a silk carpet, stone mountains rise to the sky, fast rivers flow from the mountains, Boats are running across the blue sea, and a mighty Russian hero is riding through the dark forest on a good horse, riding along the road to get the gap-grass, which reveals heroic happiness.

The Crow sits on a birch tree and pats its nose on a twig: clap-clap. She cleaned her nose, looked around and heard a croak:

Karr... karr!..

The cat Vaska, who was dozing on the fence, almost fell over with fear and began to grumble:

You've got it, black head... God willing, such a neck!.. What are you happy about?

Leave me alone... I have no time, don't you see? Oh, how never before... Carr-carr-carr!.. And still things are going on.

I

Once upon a time there lived a cheerful carpenter. That’s what his neighbors called him “the cheerful carpenter,” because he always worked with songs. He works and sings.

It’s good for him to sing when he has everything,” the neighbors said with envy. - And your own hut, and a cow, and a horse, and a vegetable garden, and chickens, and... even a goat.

Indeed, the carpenter had everything: his own hut, and a horse, and a cow, and chickens, and an old stubborn goat. He lived neither poor nor rich, and most importantly, everything was his own. The carpenter himself said:

Thank God I have everything...

Alyonushka's tales of Mamin-Sibiryak

Alyonushka's tales of Mamin-Sibiryak- a wonderful book from the children's literature collection. This list of tales includes fairy tales, which Mamin-Sibiryak told his little daughter Alyonushka. They contain the colors of a sunny day, the beauty of beautiful Russian nature. Together with Alyonushka, you enter a magical land where children's toys come to life and various plants talk, and ordinary mosquitoes can defeat a huge bear. And, of course, you will laugh when you are read a fairy tale about a stupid fly, completely sure that people take out the jam only to feed it. Children's tales of Mamin-Sibiryak quite varied and written for children of different ages. On our website you can read Alyonushka's tales from Sibiryak's mother online without restrictions.

He was like a piece of jasper,
beautiful, patterned jasper,
brought far from his native mountains.

A lot of people talked about Mamin-Sibiryak, especially after his death. Some with admiration, some with obvious irritation, and some with mockery. This man gave rise to very diverse judgments.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with an open face and “wonderful, slightly thoughtful eyes”, he stood out in any crowd. And his “the unforced grace of a young, free-trained bear” only strengthened the general impression of some kind of bewitching wild force. Mamin's character matched his appearance. The same unbridled, hot-tempered. His harsh judgments, his full-fledged witticisms, his harsh assessments often offended people, giving rise to ill-wishers. But more often Dmitry Narkisovich was forgiven for something that would not have been forgiven for someone else. So great was the charm of this big, strong, but in some ways very vulnerable and touching man.
His kindness and gentleness were not immediately revealed to everyone. Although even the pseudonym, firmly fused with the surname - “Mamin-Sibiryak” - sounded somehow warm, homely.
Strictly speaking, this pseudonym was not entirely accurate. The old wooden house of the factory priest, where the future writer was born, was located on the very border of Europe and Asia. "Watershed of the Ural Mountains" passed only 14 miles. There, in the Urals, Dmitry Narkisovich spent his childhood and youth. His best books have been written about the Urals, about its extraordinary nature and people.
What about Siberia? It lay further to the east. And it was not the writer’s favorite theme and the main content of his works. To be fair, he should have chosen a different pseudonym. For example, Mamin-Uralsky or Mamin-Uralets. But the sound wouldn't be the same.
Ural - the body is stone, the heart is fiery. He always stayed with Mom. Even when he moved to St. Petersburg and became a full-fledged resident of the capital, or went with his daughter to relax at some fashionable resort, none of the beauties and miracles there pleased him. Everything seemed dull, devoid of brightness and color.
Why, striving with all his heart to go to the Urals, did he spend almost half of his life away from it? There was a reason. Sad reason. Daughter Alyonushka was born a weak, sickly girl. She lost her mother in infancy. And all the care for her fell on her father’s shoulders. Mamin devoted the last years of his life entirely to his daughter. Doctors forbade Alyonushka to travel long distances, and Dmitry Narkisovich had to come to terms with this. But having taken the Urals from her father, Alyonushka gave him something else.
And not only him. “Alyonushka’s Tales” (1894-96) are touching, poetic, achingly beautiful. They were written with such selfless love and tenderness that they still make young readers, the same age as little Alyonushka, laugh and cry. And Mamin-Sibiryak himself once admitted: “This is my favorite book, it was written by love itself, and therefore it will outlive everything else.”.
By and large, this is what happened. More than a century has passed since the appearance of fairy tales. And although “adult” novels and stories by Mamin-Sibiryak are still published, for most readers he remains precisely a children’s writer, the creator of the marvelous “Alyonushka’s Fairy Tales.”

Irina Kazyulkina

WORKS OF D.N. MAMINA-SIBIRYAK

COMPLETE WORKS: in 20 volumes / D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak. - Ekaterinburg: Bank of cultural information, 2002-.
The publication is not finished.

COLLECTED WORKS: in 6 volumes / D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak. - Moscow: Fiction, 1980-1981.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the famous publisher Marx published the collected works of D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak, which included about 250 (!) works. Moreover, it did not include stories and fairy tales for children (about 150 titles) and about a hundred works, "lost" in various periodicals or not yet published at that time (journalism, essays, newspaper reports, scientific articles).
This collection of works, although it does not pretend to be exhaustive, represents the work of D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak in a fairly diverse way. It includes not only novels that brought the author fame as an accurate writer of everyday life and ethnographer of the Urals, but also numerous stories, essays, articles and, of course, works for children.

SELECTED WORKS: in 2 volumes / D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak. - Moscow: Fiction, 1988.
Mamin-Sibiryak is a Uralian. He was one both in life and in his work. Every page of his Ural stories and essays preserves the mysterious charm of this region, so unlike others. At times it seems that the resinous aroma of fir and spruce forests emanates from these pages, and the Chusovaya and Kama rivers roll out their heavy waves onto them.

ALENUSHKIN'S TALES / D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak; artist S. Nabutovsky. - Moscow: Makhaon, 2011. - 125 p. : ill. - (For the little ones).
“Alyonushka’s Tales” were first published in 1894-96 on the pages of “Children’s Reading,” one of the best magazines of that time. It was published by the famous Moscow teacher D.I. Tikhomirov. The fairy tales were published as a separate edition in 1897 and have been constantly republished in Russia since then.

MOUNTAIN NEST / D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak. - Moscow: Astrel: AST; Vladimir: VKT, 2011. - 416 p. : ill. - (Russian classics).
GOLD / Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak. - Moscow: AST: Astrel: Poligrafizdat, 2010. - 382 p. : ill. - (Russian classics).
PRIVALOV MILLIONS / D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak. - Moscow: Meshcheryakov Publishing House, 2007. - 480 p. : ill.
“Privalov's Millions” (1883) and “Mountain Nest” (1984) are the most famous “adult” novels by Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak. They managed to step over a century, only to become strikingly and even frighteningly modern again at the beginning of our century.

GRAY NECK / Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak; artist Lyudmila Karpenko. - Moscow: TriMag, 2008. - 31 p. : ill.
GRAY NECK / D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak; [ill. V. Ermolaeva]. - Moscow: Meshcheryakov Publishing House, 2009. - 32 p. : ill.
There are books that seem to have always existed. This is one of them. They could cry over the story of the little duck just as sincerely and selflessly in the distant past, as they will probably cry in the equally distant future. After all, there is always a place for pity and compassion in a person’s soul.

FAIRY TALES. LEGENDS. STORIES / D. N. Mamin-Sibirk. - Moscow: New Key, 2003. - 368 p. : ill.
One person, remembering Mamin-Sibiryak, once said: “Children loved him and animals were not afraid of him.”. This book includes stories and fairy tales of the writer, which he dedicated to both.

Irina Kazyulkina

LITERATURE ABOUT THE LIFE AND WORK OF D.N. MAMINA-SIBIRYAK

Mamin-Sibiryak D. N. From the distant past: [memories] // Mamin-Sibiryak D. N. Stories, stories, essays. - Moscow: Moscow Worker, 1975. - P. 387-478.

Begak B. A. “After all, it’s happiness to write for children” // Begak B. A. Classics in the land of childhood. - Moscow: Children's literature, 1983. - P. 89-98.

Dergachev I. D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak. Personality. Creativity / I. Dergachev. - Ed. 2nd. - Sverdlovsk: Central Ural Book Publishing House, 1981. - 304 p. : ill.

Green mountains, motley people: in search of connecting threads: following the travels of D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak / [authors of essays A. P. Chernoskutov, Yu. V. Shinkarenko]. - Ekaterinburg: Socrates, 2008. - 480 p. : ill.

Kireev R. I dreamed of happiness in a spring thunderstorm // Science and religion. - 2003. - No. 1. - P. 36-39.

Kitaynik M. G. Father and daughter: essay in letters // Mamin-Sibiryak D. N. Green Mountains. - Moscow: Young Guard, 1982. - P. 332-365.

Korf O. Children about writers: the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. - Moscow: Sagittarius, 2006.

Kuzin N. To suffer and rejoice with a thousand hearts // Our contemporary. - 2002. - No. 10. - P. 234-241.

D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak in the memoirs of contemporaries. - Sverdlovsk: Sverdlovsk Book Publishing House, 1962. - 361 p.

Pospelov G.N. Life and customs of the stone belt: “Privalov’s millions” by D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak / G.N. Pospelov // Peaks: a book about outstanding works of Russian literature. - Moscow: Children's literature, 1983. - P. 54-67.

Sergovantsev N. Mamin-Sibiryak / Nikolay Sergovantsev. - Moscow: Young Guard, 2005. - 337 p. : ill. - (Life of wonderful people).

Tubelskaya G.N. Children's writers of Russia: one hundred and thirty names: biobibliographic reference book / G.N. Tubelskaya. - Moscow: Russian School Library Association, 2007 - 492 p. : ill.
Read the biographical sketch about D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak on p. 201-203.

Chantsev A.V. Mamin-Sibiryak D.N. // Russian writers. 1800-1917: biographical dictionary. - Moscow: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 1994. - T. 3. - P. 497-502.

Encyclopedia of literary heroes: Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century. - Moscow: Olympus: AST, 1997. - 768 p. : ill.
Read about the heroes of the works of D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak (including the Gray Neck) on p. 270-275.

I.K.

SCREEN ADAPTATIONS OF D.N. MAMINA-SIBIRYAK’S WORKS

- ART FILMS -

In the power of gold. Based on the play "Gold Miners". Dir. I.Pravov. Comp. E. Rodygin. USSR, 1957. Cast: I. Pereverzev, I. Kmit, V. Chekmarev and others.

Gold. Dir. A. Marmontov. Russia, 2012. Cast: S. Bezrukov, M. Porechenkov, I. Skobtseva and others.

On a golden day. TV version of the play by the Theater. E. Vakhtangov. Dir. M. Markova, A. Remezova. USSR, 1977. Cast: Y. Borisova, N. Gritsenko, V. Shalevich and others.

Under the linden tree. TV movie. Dir. S. Remmeh. USSR, 1979. Cast: N. Danilova, A. Leskov, V. Panina, I. Gorbachev and others.

Privalov's millions. Dir. Ya. Lapshin. Comp. Yu. Levitin. USSR, 1972. Cast: L. Kulagin, V. Strzhelchik, L. Khityaeva, A. Fait, L. Chursina, L. Sokolova and others.

Privalov's millions. TV series. Dir. D. Klante, N. Popov. Comp. S. Pironkov. Germany-Bulgaria, 1983. Cast: R. Chanev, G. Cherkelov, M. Dimitrova and others.

- CARTOONS -

Ruff and Sparrow. Based on “The Tale of Sparrow Vorobeich, Ruff Ershovich and the cheerful chimney sweep Yasha.” Dir. V. Petkevich. Belarus, 2000.

Once upon a time there lived the last fly. Based on “The Tale of How the Last Fly Lived.” Dir. V. Petkevich. Belarus, 2009.

Gray Neck. Dir. L. Amalrik, V. Polkovnikov. Comp. Yu. Nikolsky. USSR, 1948. The roles were voiced by: V. Ivanova, F. Kurikhin, V. Telegina and others.

A tale about Komar Komarovich. Dir. V. Fomin. Comp. V. Kazenin. USSR, 1980. The roles were voiced by: Z. Naryshkina, M. Vinogradova, Y. Volyntsev, B. Runge.

A tale about a brave hare. Dir. N. Pavlovskaya. USSR, 1978.

A fairy tale about a little booger. Dir. V. Petkevich. Artistic-post. A.Petrov. USSR, 1985. The text is read by G. Burkov.

Brave Bunny. Dir. I. Ivanov-Vano. Comp. Yu. Levitin. USSR, 1955. The roles were voiced by: Vitya Koval, V. Popova, V. Volodin, G. Vitsin and others.

I.K.

“Bay-bye-bye...
One of Alyonushka’s eyes is asleep, the other is watching; One ear of Alyonushka is sleeping, the other is listening.
Sleep, Alyonushka, sleep, beauty, and dad will tell fairy tales...”
How many of these fairy tales are there? Exactly ten:
"The Tale of the Brave Hare - Long Ears, Slanting Eyes, Short Tail"
"The Tale of Kozyavochka"
“About Komar Komarovich - a long nose and about shaggy Misha - a short tail,”
"Vanka's name day"
“The Tale of Sparrow Vorobeich, Ruff Ershovich and the cheerful chimney sweep Yasha”
"The Tale of How the Last Fly Lived"
“The fairy tale about Voronushka - a black little head and a yellow bird, Canary,”
"Smarter than everyone else"
"The Parable of Milk, Oatmeal Porridge and the Gray Cat Murka"
"It's time to sleep".
Since 1896, when “Alyonushka’s Tales” were first published, Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin-Sibiryak began to consider them his best work, and himself as a children’s writer. He chose the name for the fairy tales not by chance - Alyonushka was his daughter’s name. Dmitry Narkisovich lovingly called her "father's daughter"- She lost her mother at birth and from the cradle was surrounded only by his care. The girl had to endure many trials. Almost immediately it became clear that Alyonushka was seriously and hopelessly ill. And only thanks to her father’s enormous will and courage, over time she somewhat got used to it and adapted to life. And the disease, although it did not go away completely, receded.
Years will pass, and the grown-up Alyonushka, in turn, will take care of her paralyzed father. This will close this circle of love and self-sacrifice.
...The earth has long laid to rest both father and daughter. All their sorrows and troubles went with them. But love remained. Every page of “Alyonushka’s Tales” and “The Gray Neck” breathes with it - works in which the writer managed to forever preserve the features of his dear Alyonushka.

Portrait of father and daughter

This is one of the many joint photographs of Dmitry Narkisovich and Alyonushka. In pre-revolutionary times, they appeared more than once on the pages of children's and youth magazines.

From the latest editions:

Mamin-Sibiryak D.N. Alyonushka's tales / With forty-five figs. artist A. Afanasyeva [and others]. - Reprint. ed. - M.: IEOPGKO, 2006. - 131 p.: ill. - (B-ka of spiritual and moral culture).

Mamin-Sibiryak D.N. Gray neck / Fig. S. Yarovoy. - M.: Det. lit., 2006. - 16 p.: ill.

Mamin-Sibiryak D.N. Gray neck / Artist. D. Belozertsev. - M.: Aquilegia-M, 2007. - 48 p.: ill. - (Classics).

Mamin-Sibiryak D.N. Gray neck / Artist. L. Karpenko. - M.: TriMag, 2008. - 31 p.: ill.

Mamin-Sibiryak D.N. "The Gray Neck" and other tales. - M.: ROSMEN-PRESS, 2009. - 80 p.: ill. - (The best storytellers of Russia).

Mamin-Sibiryak D.N. A fairy tale about a brave Hare - long ears, slanting eyes, a short tail / Artist. V. Dugin. - M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2007. - p.: ill. - (Favorite book).

Mamin-Sibiryak D.N. A fairy tale about a brave Hare - long ears, slanting eyes, a short tail / Artist. S. Sachkov. - M.: AST: Astrel; Tula: Rodnichok, 2007. - 16 p.: ill.

Irina Kazyulkina

DMITRY NARKISOVICH MAMIN-SIBIRYAK

D.N.Mamin-Sibiryak

ABOUT THE BOOK

In the rosy perspective of childhood memories, it is not only people who are alive, but also those inanimate objects that were in one way or another connected with the small life of a beginning little person. And now I think about them as living beings, again experiencing the impressions and sensations of distant childhood.
In these silent participants in children's life, in the foreground, of course, is a children's book with pictures... It was that living thread that led out of the children's room and connected it with the rest of the world. For me, every children's book is still something alive, because it awakens a child's soul, directs children's thoughts in a certain direction and makes a child's heart beat along with millions of other children's hearts. A children's book is a spring ray of sunshine that awakens the dormant powers of a child's soul and causes the seeds thrown onto this grateful soil to grow. Thanks to this particular book, children merge into one huge spiritual family that knows no ethnographic and geographical boundaries.
<…>
Just now I see an old wooden house with five large windows looking out onto the square. It was remarkable in that on one side the windows looked out onto Europe, and on the other into Asia. The watershed of the Ural Mountains was only fourteen miles away.
“Those mountains are already in Asia,” my father explained to me, pointing to the silhouettes of distant mountains piled towards the horizon. - We live on the very border...
This “border” contained something especially mysterious for me, separating two completely incommensurable worlds. In the east the mountains were higher and more beautiful, but I loved the west more, which was completely prosaically obscured by the low Kokurnikova hill. As a child, I loved to sit by the window for a long time and look at this mountain. It sometimes seemed to me that she seemed to be deliberately blocking with herself all those miracles that seemed to a child’s imagination in the mysterious, distant west. After all, everything came from there, from the West, starting with the first children’s picture book... The East did not give anything, and in the child’s soul a mysterious craving for the West awoke, grew and matured. By the way, our corner room, which was called the tea room, although they didn’t drink tea in it, had a window facing the west and contained the treasured key to this west, and even now I think about it as one thinks about a living person with whom dear ones are connected. memories.
The soul of this tea room, so to speak, was the bookcase. In him, like in an electric battery, an inexhaustible, mysterious powerful force was concentrated, which caused the first fermentation of children's thoughts. And this closet also seems to me to be a living creature.<…>
“These are our best friends,” my father liked to repeat, pointing to the books. - And what dear friends... You just need to think how much intelligence, talent and knowledge it takes to write a book. Then it needs to be published, then it has to make a long, long journey until it gets to us in the Urals. Each book will pass through thousands of hands before it reaches the shelf of our closet.<…>
Our library was composed of classics, and in it - alas! - there wasn’t a single children’s book... In my early childhood, I didn’t even see such a book. Books were obtained through a long process of ordering from the capitals or accidentally arrived through book-sellers. I had to start reading straight from the classics, like grandfather Krylov, Gogol, Pushkin, Goncharov, etc. I saw my first children's book with pictures only when I was about ten years old, when a new factory manager from artillery officers, a very educated man, arrived at our factory. How I remember now this first children's book, the name of which I, unfortunately, forgot. But I clearly remember the drawings in it, especially the living bridge of monkeys and paintings of tropical nature. Of course, I have never seen a better book than this one.
The first children's book in our library was “Children's World” by Ushinsky. This book had to be ordered from St. Petersburg, and we waited for it every day for almost three months. Finally, she appeared and was, of course, eagerly read from board to board. A new era began with this book. Behind her came the stories of Razin, Chistyakov and other children's books. My favorite book became the stories about the conquest of Kamchatka. I read it ten times and knew it almost by heart. Simple illustrations were complemented by imagination. Mentally, I performed all the heroic deeds of the Cossack conquerors, swam in light Aleutian kayaks, ate rotten fish from the Chukchi, collected eider down from the rocks and died of hunger when the Aleuts, Chukchi and Kamchadals died. From this book on, travel became my favorite reading, and my favorite classics were forgotten for a while. The reading of “Frigate Pallas” by Goncharov dates back to this time. I waited impatiently for the evening, when my mother finished her day's work and sat down at the table with a treasured book. We were already traveling together, sharing equally the dangers and consequences of traveling around the world. Wherever we were, whatever we experienced, we sailed forward and forward, inspired by the thirst to see new countries, new people and forms of life unknown to us. There were, of course, many unknown places and incomprehensible words, but these pitfalls were avoided with the help of a dictionary of foreign words and common interpretations.<…>
We are now too accustomed to the book to even approximately appreciate the enormous power that it represents. What is more important is that this force, in the form of a traveling book in an ofeni box, itself came to the reader in that distant time and, moreover, brought other books with it - books travel around the world in families, and their family connection is preserved between them. I would compare these wandering books to migratory birds that bring with them spiritual spring. One might think that some invisible hand of some invisible genius carried this book across the vast expanse of Rus', tirelessly sowing “reasonable, good, eternal.” Yes, it is now easy to build a home library of the best authors, especially thanks to illustrated publications; but the book has already made its way into the darkest times, in the good old days of banknotes, tallow candles and any movement of the native “tug”. Here one cannot help but remember with a kind word the ancient book-carrier, who, like water, penetrated into every well. For us children, his appearance in the house was a real holiday. He also supervised the selection of books and gave, if necessary, the necessary explanations.<…>
So... we opened a whole warehouse of books, the container for which was a huge old chest of drawers with copper brackets. Kostya and I pounced on this treasure like mice on cereal, and in the very first steps we dug Ammalat-Bek himself out of the dust of oblivion.
For several months we simply raved about this book and when we met, we greeted each other with a mountain song:

<…>
“Writers” and “poetsers” constituted an insoluble riddle for us. Who are they, where do they live, how do they write their books? For some reason it seemed to me that this mysterious man who writes books must certainly be angry and proud. This thought saddened me, and I began to feel hopelessly stupid.
“The generals write all the books,” Roman Rodionich assured. - There is no less than the rank of general, otherwise everyone will write!
To prove his words, he referred to portraits of Karamzin and Krylov - both writers were among the stars.
Kostya and I still doubted the literary generalship and turned to Alexander Petrovich, who should have known everything, to resolve the issue.
“There are also generals,” he answered rather indifferently, straightening his bulges. - Why shouldn’t there be generals?
- All the generals?..
- Well, where should everyone be... There are also very simple ones, like us.
- They’re completely simple, and they make things up?
- And they make up things because they want to eat. If you walk into a bookstore in St. Petersburg, your eyes will widen. All the books are piled up to the ceiling, like we have firewood. If the generals wrote everything, there would be no way from them on the street. There are very simple writers, and they even often go hungry...
The latter no longer fit in at all with the idea we had about the author in our heads. It even seemed ashamed: here we are reading his book, and the author is starving somewhere in St. Petersburg. After all, he tries and composes for us, and we began to feel a little guilty.
“This can’t be,” Kostya decided. - They probably also receive their salary...
An even more insoluble question was where in the book is reality and where is the writer’s fiction.<…>
In our pantry and in Alexander Petrovich’s chest of drawers, we found, among other things, many books that were completely inaccessible to our children’s understanding. These were all ancient books, printed on thick blue paper with mysterious watermarks and bound in leather. They exuded indestructible strength, like well-preserved old men. Since childhood, I have developed a love for such an old book, and my imagination imagined a mysterious person who wrote a book a hundred or two hundred years ago for me to read now.<…>
Among the mysterious old books were those whose very title was difficult to understand: “The Key to the Mysteries of Science”, “The Theater of Judicial Science”, “A Short and Easiest Way to Pray, the Creation of Madame Gion”, “The Triumphant Chameleon, or the Image of Anecdotes and Properties Count Mirabeau”, “Three original human properties, or the Image of cold, hot and warm”, “Moral letters to Lida about the love of noble souls”, “Irtysh turning into Ipokrena” (scattered books of the first Siberian magazine), etc. We tried to read these sophisticated mysterious books and died in the most shameful way on the first pages. This only convinced us that these ancient books were the most intelligent, because only educated people, like our factory manager, could understand them.
<…>
The sixties were marked even in the most remote provinces by a huge influx of new, popular-scientific books. It was a clear sign of the times.<…>
I was about fifteen years old when I came across a new book. About ten miles from our plant there were famous platinum mines. Nikolai Fedorych, a former student of Kazan University, entered there as a manager, or, in factory terms, a trustee. Kostya and I had already wandered around the neighboring mountains with guns, visited a mine, met new people and found here a new book, a microscope, and completely new conversations. Another former student, Alexander Alekseevich, lived in the mine office, who, mainly, initiated us into the new faith. On the shelf in the office there were books unknown to us even by name. There were botanical conversations by Schleiden, Moleshot, Vogt, Lyell, and many other famous European names. A completely new world was opening up before our eyes, vast and irresistibly beckoning us with the light of real knowledge and real science. We were simply stunned and did not know what to take on, and most importantly, how to take on it “from the very beginning”, so that later we would not make a mistake and would not have to go back to the old way.
It was a naive and happy faith in the science that was supposed to explain everything and teach everything, and the science itself was contained in those new books that stood on the shelf in the mine office.<…>
And now, when I accidentally come across some book from the sixties somewhere at a second-hand bookstore, I have a joyful feeling, as if I’m going to find a good old friend.

NOTES

The essay “About the Book” is abbreviated according to the edition: Mamin-Sibiryak D.N. Collected works: in 8 volumes - M.: Goslitizdat, 1953-1955. - T. 8. - P. 553-570.

"Children's World" by Ushinsky- “Native Word” and “Children’s World” are the first Russian books for the primary education of children, published since the mid-1860s. in huge circulations and therefore publicly available. They consisted of stories and tales about nature and animals. The great Russian teacher, philosopher and writer Konstantin Dmitrievich Ushinsky wrote them abroad, having studied schools in Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy and other countries and summarizing his teaching experience.

Ammalat-Bek- a story by Alexander Alexandrovich Bestuzhev-Marlinsky (1797-1837). A Decembrist writer, he was transferred from Siberian exile to the Caucasus, to the active army; He participated as a private in battles with the highlanders and died in the same year as A.S. Pushkin. Marlinsky’s romantic stories captivated readers in the late 1820s and 30s, but later the alien passions and pompous language of his characters were perceived rather as a parody of romanticism.

Kostya- son of a factory employee, childhood friend of D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak.

Stories by Razin, Chistyakov- in 1851-65. teacher and children's writer Mikhail Borisovich Chistyakov (1809-1885) published the "Magazine for Children", first together with Alexei Egorovich Razin (1823-1875), a journalist and popularizer, and then alone. The magazine published stories, short stories and essays in which the author told children in a fascinating way about history, geography, literature, famous people of Russia and other countries.

Schleiden's botanical conversations- Matthias Jakob Schleiden (1804-1881), German biologist, botanist and social activist.

Moleshot - the works of the Dutch physiologist Jacob Moleschott (1822-1893) were well known in Russia in the second half of the 19th century.

Vogt - German naturalist, zoologist and paleontologist Karl Vogt (Vocht; 1817-1895).

Lyell - Charles Lyell (1797-1875), English geologist, founder of modern geology.