On the warm earth (collection). Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov - On the warm earth (collection) The last years of the writer’s life

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I. S. SOKOLOV-MIKITOV

Sixty years of active creative activity in the turbulent 20th century, full of so many events and shocks - this is the result of the life of the remarkable Soviet writer Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov.

He spent his childhood in the Smolensk region, with its sweet, truly Russian nature. In those days, the village still preserved its ancient way of life and way of life. The boy's first impressions were festive festivities and village fairs. It was then that he became one with his native land, with its immortal beauty.

When Vanya was ten years old, he was sent to a real school. Unfortunately, this institution was distinguished by bureaucratic behavior, and the teaching went poorly. In spring, the smells of awakened greenery irresistibly attracted the boy beyond the Dnieper, to its banks, covered with a gentle haze of blossoming foliage.

Sokolov-Mikitov was expelled from the fifth grade of the school “on suspicion of belonging to student revolutionary organizations.” It was impossible to go anywhere with a “wolf ticket”. The only educational institution where a certificate of trustworthiness was not required was the St. Petersburg private agricultural courses, where a year later he was able to get, although, as the writer admitted, he did not feel a great attraction to agriculture, just as, indeed, he never felt an attraction to settledness, property, domesticity...

Boring coursework soon turned out to be not to the liking of Sokolov-Mikitov, a man with a restless, restless character. Having settled in Reval (now Tallinn) on a merchant ship, he wandered around the world for several years. I saw many cities and countries, visited European, Asian and African ports, and became close friends with working people.

The First World War found Sokolov-Mikitov in a foreign land. With great difficulty, he made it from Greece to his homeland, and then volunteered for the front, flew on the first Russian bomber “Ilya Muromets”, and served in medical detachments.

In Petrograd I met the October Revolution, listened with bated breath to the speech of V. I. Lenin in the Tauride Palace. At the editorial office of Novaya Zhizn I met Maxim Gorky and other writers. During these critical years for the country, Ivan Sergeevich became a professional writer.

After the revolution, he worked briefly as a teacher at a unified labor school in his native Smolensk region. By this time, Sokolov-Mikitov had already published the first stories, noticed by such masters as I.

Bunin and A. Kuprin.

“Warm Earth” - this is what the writer called one of his first books. And it would be difficult to find a more accurate, more capacious name! After all, the native Russian land is really warm, because it is warmed by the warmth of human labor and love.

The stories of Sokolov-Mikitov date back to the time of the first polar expeditions about the voyages of the flagships of the icebreaker fleet “Georgy Sedov” and “Malygin”, which marked the beginning of the development of the Northern Sea Route. On one of the islands of the Arctic Ocean, a bay was named after Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov, where he found the buoy of the lost Ziegler expedition, the fate of which was unknown until that moment.

Sokolov-Mikitov spent several winters on the shores of the Caspian Sea, traveling through the Kola and Taimyr Peninsulas, Transcaucasia, the Tien Shan Mountains, the Northern and Murmansk Territories. He wandered through the dense taiga, saw the steppe and the sultry desert, and traveled all over the Moscow region. Each such trip not only enriched him with new thoughts and experiences, but was also imprinted by him in new works.

This man of good talent gave people hundreds of stories and tales, essays and sketches. The pages of his books are illuminated with the wealth and generosity of his soul.

The work of Sokolov-Mikitov is close to Aksakov’s, Turgenev’s, and Bunin’s style. However, his works have their own special world: not outside observation, but live communication with the surrounding life.

The encyclopedia says about Ivan Sergeevich: “Russian Soviet writer, sailor, traveler, hunter, ethnographer.” And although there is a full stop next, this list could be continued: teacher, revolutionary, soldier, journalist, polar explorer.

Sokolov-Mikitov's books are written in a melodious, rich and at the same time very simple language, the same language that the writer learned in his childhood.

In one of his autobiographical notes, he wrote: “I was born and grew up in a simple working Russian family, among the forest expanses of the Smolensk region, its wonderful and very feminine nature. The first words I heard were bright folk words, the first music I heard were folk songs, which the composer Glinka was once inspired by.”

In search of new visual means, back in the twenties of the last century, the writer turned to a unique genre of short (not short, but short) stories, which he successfully dubbed epics.

To an inexperienced reader, these tales may seem like simple notes from a notebook, made on the fly, as a reminder of the events and characters that struck him.

We have already seen the best examples of such short, non-fictional stories in L. Tolstoy, I. Bunin, V. Veresaev, M. Prishvin.

Sokolov-Mikitov in his epic stories comes not only from the literary tradition, but also from folk art, from the spontaneity of oral stories.

His tales “Red and Black”, “On Your Coffin”, “Terrible Dwarf”, “Bridegrooms” and others are characterized by extraordinary capacity and accuracy of speech. Even in his so-called hunting stories, man is in the foreground. Here he continues the best traditions of S. Aksakov and I. Turgenev.

Reading Sokolov-Mikitov’s short stories about Smolensk places (“On the Nevestnitsa River”) or about bird wintering grounds in the south of the country (“Lenkoran”), you involuntarily become imbued with sublime sensations and thoughts, the feeling of admiration for your native nature turns into something else, more noble - into feeling of patriotism.

“His creativity, having its source in a small homeland (that is, the Smolensk region), belongs to the big Motherland, our great land with its vast expanses, innumerable riches and varied beauty - from north to south, from the Baltic to the Pacific coast,” said about Sokolov-Mikitov A. Tvardovsky.

Not all people are able to feel and understand nature in organic connection with human mood, and only a few can simply and wisely paint nature. Sokolov-Mikitov had such a rare gift. He knew how to convey this love for nature and for people living in friendship with it to his very young readers. Our preschool and school children have long loved his books: “The Body”, “The House in the Forest”, “Fox Evasion”... And how picturesque his stories about hunting are: “On the Wood Grouse Current”, “Pulling”, “The First Hunt” and others. You read them, and it seems that you yourself are standing on the edge of a forest and, holding your breath, watching the majestic flight of a woodcock or in the early, pre-dawn hour listening to the mysterious and magical song of a wood grouse...

The writer Olga Forsh said: “You read Mikitov and wait: a woodpecker is about to knock overhead or a little hare is going to jump out from under the table; how great it is, how he really told it!”

Sokolov-Mikitov’s work is autobiographical, but not in the sense that he wrote only about himself, but because he always talked about everything as an eyewitness and participant in certain events. This gives his works a vivid persuasiveness and that documentary authenticity that so attracts the reader.

“I was lucky enough to become close to Ivan Sergeevich in the early years of his literary work,” recalled K. Fedin. – It was shortly after the Civil War. For half a century, he devoted me so much to his life that sometimes it seems to me that it has become mine.

He never set out to write his biography in detail. But he is one of those rare artists whose life seemed to combine everything that was written by him.”

Kaleria Zhekhova

ON THE NATIVE LAND

Sunrise

Even in early childhood I had the opportunity to admire the sunrise. Early in the spring morning, on a holiday, my mother sometimes woke me up and carried me to the window in her arms:

- Look how the sun plays!

Behind the trunks of old linden trees, a huge flaming ball rose above the awakened earth. He seemed to swell, shine with a joyful light, play, and smile. My childish soul rejoiced. For the rest of my life I will remember my mother’s face, illuminated by the rays of the rising sun.

As an adult, I watched the sun rise many times. I met him in the forest, when before dawn the pre-dawn wind passes above the tops of the heads, one after another the clear stars go out in the sky, the black peaks appear more clearly and clearly in the lightened sky. There is dew on the grass. A spider's web stretched out in the forest sparkles with many sparkles. The air is clean and transparent. On a dewy morning, the dense forest smells of resin.

I saw the sunrise over my native fields, over a green meadow covered with dew, over the silver surface of the river. The cool mirror of the water reflects the pale morning stars, the thin crescent of the month. The dawn is breaking in the east, and the water appears pink. As if in a steamy light haze, the sun rises above the earth to the singing of countless birds. Like the living breath of the earth, a light golden fog spreads over the fields, over the motionless ribbon of the river. The sun is rising higher and higher. The cool, transparent dew in the meadows shines like a diamond scattering.

I watched the sun appear on a frosty winter morning, when the deep snow shone unbearably, and light frosty frost scattered from the trees. Admired the sunrise in the high mountains of the Tien Shan and Caucasus, covered with sparkling glaciers.

The sunrise over the ocean is especially beautiful. As a sailor, standing on watch, I watched many times how the rising sun changes its color: it either swells with a flaming ball, or is obscured by fog or distant clouds. And everything around suddenly changes. The distant shores and the crests of the oncoming waves seem different. The color of the sky itself changes, covering the endless sea with a golden-blue tent. The foam on the crests of the waves seems golden. The seagulls flying astern seem golden. The masts gleam with scarlet gold, and the painted side of the ship glistens. You used to stand on watch at the bow of a steamship and your heart would be filled with unspeakable joy. A new day is born! How many meetings and adventures does it promise for the young happy sailor!

Residents of big cities rarely admire the sunrise. Tall stone hulks of city houses block the horizon. Even villagers wake up for the short hour of sunrise, the beginning of the day. But in the living world of nature, everything awakens. On the edges of the forest, over the illuminated water, nightingales sing loudly. Light larks soar from the fields into the sky, disappearing in the rays of dawn. Cuckoos crow joyfully, blackbirds whistle.

Only sailors, hunters - people closely connected with Mother Earth, know the joy of the solemn sunrise, when life awakens on earth.

My dear readers, I strongly advise you to admire the sunrise, the clear early morning glow. You will feel your heart fill with fresh joy. There is nothing more beautiful in nature than early morning, early morning dawn, when the earth breathes with maternal breath and life awakens.

Russian Winter

Russian snowy winters are good and clean. Deep snowdrifts sparkle in the sun. Large and small rivers disappeared under the ice. On a frosty, quiet morning, smoke rises into the sky in pillars over the roofs of village houses. Under a snow coat, the earth is resting, gaining strength.

Quiet and bright winter nights. Showering the snow with a subtle light, the moon shines. Fields and treetops twinkle in the moonlight. The well-worn winter road is clearly visible. Dark shadows in the forest. The winter night frost is strong, the tree trunks crackle in the forest. Tall stars are scattered across the sky. The Big Dipper shines brightly with the clear Polar Star pointing north. The Milky Way stretches across the sky from edge to edge - a mysterious celestial road. In the Milky Way, the Cygnus, a large constellation, spread its wings.

There is something fantastic, fabulous about a moonlit winter night. I remember Pushkin’s poems, Gogol’s stories, Tolstoy, Bunin. Anyone who has ever driven on a moonlit night along winter country roads will probably remember their impressions.

And how beautiful is the winter dawn, the morning dawn, when snow-covered fields and hillocks are illuminated by the golden rays of the rising sun and the dazzling whiteness sparkles! The Russian winter is extraordinary, bright winter days, moonlit nights!

Once upon a time, hungry wolves roamed the snowy fields and roads; Foxes ran, leaving thin chains of footprints in the snow, looking for mice hidden under the snow. Even during the day you could see a mouse-like fox in the field. Carrying her fluffy tail over the snow, she ran through the fields and copses, with her keen hearing sensing mice hidden under the snow.

Wonderful winter sunny days. Expanse for skiers running on light skis on slippery snow. I didn't like the trails beaten by skiers. Near such a ski track, where man after man runs in a chain, it is difficult to see an animal or a forest bird. I went alone into the forest on skis. The skis glide smoothly and almost silently over the untouched snow. The pine trees raise their curly, whitened tops into the high sky. White snow lies on the green thorny branches of spreading spruce trees. Under the weight of frost, young tall birch trees bent into an arc. Dark ant heaps are covered with snow. Black ants spend the winter in them.

The seemingly dead winter forest is full of life.

A woodpecker knocked on a dry tree. Carrying a cone in his beak, he flew with a colorful handkerchief to another place - to his “smithy”, built in the fork of an old stump, deftly set the cone into his workbench and began to hammer with his beak. Resinous scales flew in all directions. There are a lot of pecked cones lying around the stump. A nimble squirrel jumped from tree to tree. A large white snow cap fell from the tree and crumbled into snow dust.

At the edge of the forest you can see black grouse sitting on birch trees. In winter they feed on birch buds. Wandering in the snow, they collect black juniper berries. The surface of the snow is scrawled between the bushes with cross-shaped tracks of grouse paws. On cold winter days, black grouse, falling from birches, burrow into the snow, into deep holes. A happy skier sometimes manages to raise grouse hidden in snow holes. One after another, birds fly out of the deep snow in the diamond snow dust. You will stop and admire the wondrous spectacle.

Many miracles can be seen in the winter sleeping forest. A hazel grouse will fly noisily or a heavy capercaillie will rise up. All winter, wood grouse feed on hard needles on young pines. Wood mice are fiddling around under the snow. Hedgehogs sleep under the roots of trees. Angry martens are running through the trees, chasing squirrels. A flock of red-breasted cheerful crossbills, dropping the snowy overhang, sat with a pleasant whistle on the spruce branches covered with resinous cones. You stand and admire how quickly and deftly they pull the heavy cones, extracting seeds from them. A light trail of a squirrel stretches from tree to tree. Clinging to the branches, a gnawed pine cone fell from above and fell at his feet. Raising my head, I see how the branch swayed, freed from its weight, how the nimble forest prankster jumped over and hid in the dense top. Somewhere in a dense forest, bears sleep in their dens in an almost sound sleep. The stronger the frost, the more soundly the bear sleeps. Horned elk roam in the aspen forest.

The surface of the deep snowdrifts is covered in intricate patterns of animal and bird tracks. At night, a white hare ran here, fattening in the aspen forest, and left round nuts of droppings on the snow. Brown hares run through the fields at night, dig up winter crops, and leave tangled tracks in the snow. No, no, yes, and he will sit on his hind legs, raising his ears, listening to the distant barking of dogs. In the morning, hares hide in the forest. They double and line up their tracks, make long runs, lie down somewhere under a bush or spruce branch, with their heads facing their tracks. It is difficult to see a hare lying in the snow: it is the first to notice a person and quickly runs away.

Near villages and ancient parks you see swollen red-throated bullfinches, and nimble, bold titmice squeaking near the houses. It happens that on a frosty day, tits fly into open windows or into the canopy of houses. I tamed the tits that flew into my small house, and they quickly settled in it.

The crows remaining for the winter fly from tree to tree. Grey-headed jackdaws call to each other with womanish voices. A nuthatch, an amazing bird that can crawl up a tree trunk upside down, flew right under the window and sat down on a tree. Sometimes a nuthatch, like tits, flies into an open window. If you don’t move and don’t scare him, he’ll fly into the kitchen and pick up bread crumbs. Birds are hungry in winter. They forage in crevices of tree bark. Bullfinches feed on seeds of plants overwintered above the snow, rose hips, and stay near grain sheds.

It seems that the river is frozen and sleeping under the ice. But there are fishermen sitting on the ice near the holes. They are not afraid of frost, cold, piercing wind. Avid fishermen's hands get cold from the cold, but small perches are caught on the hook. In winter, burbots spawn. They hunt dozing fish. In winter, skilled fishermen catch burbots in spaced tops and holes, blocking the river with spruce branches. They catch burbot in winter using hooks and bait. In the Novgorod region, I knew an old fisherman who brought me live burbot every day. Burbot ear and liver are delicious. But, unfortunately, there are few burbots left in polluted rivers that love clean water.

And how beautiful in winter are the forest lakes covered with ice and snow, frozen small rivers, in which life invisible to the eye continues! Aspen trees are beautiful in winter with the thinnest lace of their bare branches against the backdrop of a dark spruce forest. Here and there the wintered berries on the rowan trees are turning red in the forest, and bright clusters of viburnum are hanging.

March in the forest

In the riches of the calendar of Russian nature, March is considered the first month of spring, a joyful holiday of light. The cold, blizzard February – “crooked roads”, as people call it – has already ended. As the popular saying goes, “winter is still showing its teeth.” Frosts often return in early March. But the days are getting longer and earlier and earlier the bright spring sun rises above the sparkling snowy veil. Deep snowdrifts lie untouched in the forests and fields. If you go out on skis, the surroundings will sparkle with such unbearable whiteness!

The air smells like spring. Casting purple shadows on the snow, the trees stand motionless in the forest. The sky is transparent and clear with high light clouds. Under the dark spruce trees, the spongy snow is sprinkled with fallen pine needles. A sensitive ear catches the first familiar sounds of spring. A ringing drum trill was heard almost overhead. No, this is not the creaking of an old tree, as inexperienced urban people usually think when they find themselves in the forest in early spring. Having chosen a dry, sonorous tree, the forest musician, the spotted woodpecker, drums like spring. If you listen carefully, you will certainly hear: here and there in the forest, closer and further, as if echoing, drums solemnly sound. This is how woodpecker drummers welcome the arrival of spring.

Now, warmed by the rays of the March sun, a heavy white cap fell off the top of the tree by itself and crumbled into snow dust. And, as if alive, the green branch, freed from the winter shackles, sways for a long time, as if waving its hand. A flock of crossbills, whistling cheerfully, scattered in a wide red-lingonberry necklace over the tops of the spruce trees hung with cones. Only a few observant people know that these cheerful, sociable birds spend the entire winter in coniferous forests. In the most severe cold, they skillfully build warm nests in thick branches, hatch and feed the chicks. Leaning on your ski poles, you admire for a long time how nimble birds with their crooked beaks fiddle with the pine cones, choosing seeds from them, how, circling in the air, light husks quietly fall onto the snow.

At this time, the barely awakened forest lives an almost invisible and inaudible life, accessible only to a keen eye and a sensitive ear. So, having dropped the gnawed cone, a light squirrel flew up onto the tree. Jumping from twig to twig, titmouses are shading just above the snowdrift like spring. Flashing behind the tree trunks, a tawny jay flies silently and disappears. A timid hazel grouse will flutter, thunder and hide in the depths of a forest overgrown ravine.

Illuminated by the rays of the sun, bronze trunks of pine trees rise, raising their spreading tops to the very sky. The greenish branches of bare aspens are woven into the finest lace. It smells of ozone, resin, wild rosemary, the tough evergreen branches of which have already emerged from a disintegrated snowdrift near a tall stump warmed by the March sun.

Festive, clean in the illuminated forest. Bright spots of light lie on the branches, on tree trunks, on compacted dense snowdrifts. Gliding on skis, you would come out onto a sunny, sparkling clearing surrounded by a birch forest. Suddenly, almost from under your very feet, black grouse begin to burst out of their holes in the diamond snow dust. All morning they fed on spreading birch trees strewn with buds. One after another, red-browed black grouse and yellowish-gray female grouse, resting in the snow, fly out.

On clear days in the mornings you can already hear the first spring muttering of the displaying kosher whales. Their booming voices can be heard far in the frosty air. But the real spring current will not begin soon. These are just red-browed soldiers clad in black armor trying their hand, sharpening their weapons.

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov

On warm ground

I. S. SOKOLOV-MIKITOV

This man of good talent gave people hundreds of stories and tales, essays and sketches. The pages of his books are illuminated with the wealth and generosity of his soul.

Sokolov-Mikitov's books are written in a melodious, rich and at the same time very simple language, the same language that the writer learned in his childhood.

In search of new visual means, back in the twenties of the last century, the writer turned to a unique genre of short (not short, but short) stories, which he successfully dubbed epics.

To an inexperienced reader, these tales may seem like simple notes from a notebook, made on the fly, as a reminder of the events and characters that struck him.

We have already seen the best examples of such short, non-fictional stories in L. Tolstoy, I. Bunin, V. Veresaev, M. Prishvin.

Sokolov-Mikitov in his epic stories comes not only from the literary tradition, but also from folk art, from the spontaneity of oral stories.

He never set out to write his biography in detail. But he is one of those rare artists whose life seemed to combine everything that was written by him.”

Kaleria Zhekhova

ON THE NATIVE LAND

Sunrise

Even in early childhood I had the opportunity to admire the sunrise. Early in the spring morning, on a holiday, my mother sometimes woke me up and carried me to the window in her arms:

- Look how the sun plays!

Current page: 13 (book has 13 pages total) [available reading passage: 8 pages]

The most amazing thing is that the bear lay, without a real den, under a tree, in the snow. Perhaps she was disturbed in the fall, and she left the first, real den she had prepared. She lay several fathoms from the railway line; the noise of passing trains did not disturb her.

Which hunter has not experienced this joyful feeling! When you wake up in the morning, you see a special, soft light in the windows.

Powder fell out!

Even as children, we unforgettably rejoiced at the first snow. You used to run out onto the field behind the gate - such a sparkle, dazzling whiteness would sparkle all around! Fields, roads, and sloping river banks are covered with a festive tablecloth. Forest edges are clearly visible on the white veil of snow. White fluffy hats hang on the trees. The sounds and distant voices seem special and pure. If you go out into an open field, the snowy sparkling whiteness hurts your eyes. The white tablecloth of snow is painted with hare, fox, and bird tracks. At night, brown hares fed and “fattened” on winter fields. In many places the snow has been trampled almost to the ground, and fresh greenery is visible under the icy crust. A hare leisurely trampled through the winter night. Scattering round nuts of droppings along the trail, he sat down every now and then, ears pricked, listening sensitively to the silence of the night, to the distant sounds of the night.

Even an experienced hunter finds it difficult to understand the confusing text of night tracks. In order not to waste time, he passes by the edge of a winter field. Here, at the forest edge, along the slope of the ravine, a neat fox trail stretches in a long line. Black grouse roam in a clearing overgrown with juniper bushes and surrounded by birches. Crumbs of fluffy clean snow are scattered along the crossed chains of their fresh tracks. Heavy birds took off noisily and, dropping crumbly snow caps from the branches, hastily settled on distant bare birches...

When leaving to lie down, the brown hare is cunning, meanders, doubles and builds tracks, and makes cunning estimates. An experienced hunter vigilantly looks at the terrain, at the hare's loops and marks, at the bushes covered with snow and the forest edge. An alert hunter almost unmistakably guesses the place where the hare is hiding. From its hidden bed, with its long ears pressed to its back, the hare watches the movements of the person. In order not to spoil the matter, the hunter should not go straight to the bed, but should walk to the side and keep a sharp eye on both sides. It often happens that a hare will imperceptibly “fly away” from its resting place, and from the cold “rutting” trail the unlucky hunter will guess that the cunning hare has deceived him and got away from right under his nose.

I have always considered tracking hares in fresh soft powder to be the most interesting winter hunt, requiring endurance, great observation and patience from the hunter. It is better for impatient, fussy and greedy hunters not to undertake such a hunt. Such amateur hunting is rarely productive - sometimes you have to walk for a long time to track down and shoot a hare. And now there are few mining places left where many unafraid russians remain. For a real, that is, non-greedy and non-fussy hunter, hunting through the first winter powder brings a lot of pleasure. A winter day is wonderful, the powder is light and clean, on which the traces of birds and animals are clearly imprinted, the winter air is transparent and fresh. You can wander for a long time through fields and forest edges, understanding the sophisticated literacy of night tracks. If the hunt turns out to be unsuccessful and the tired hunter returns home without any prey, the unforgettable day of winter powder will still remain joyful and bright in his memory.

FISHING

My first hunting trips taught me to see and hear well, to walk silently and secretly through the forest, to eavesdrop on forest sounds and voices. Hiding behind a tree trunk, I saw nimble hazel grouse running across the moss hummocks, and a heavy wood grouse noisily bursting from under my feet. In a pond overgrown with sedges and water lilies, I observed broods of ducks and saw small fluffy ducklings swimming and diving.

There were a lot of all kinds of fish in the pond. In the mornings, with a fishing rod in my hands, I sat on the shore, watching a small float made of a goose feather. By the movement of the float I knew what kind of fish was biting. It was a pleasure to pull out of the water golden crucian carp, spiny perch, thick-backed silver chub, redfin raft, and fat little minnows fluttering on a hook from the water. Together with my father, we put girders on pikes. Sometimes we came across large, almost pound-sized pikes. The father was pulling the prey to the punt boat. We carefully pulled out and put into the boat a squirming strong pike, its toothy mouth opening wide. There were fat tenches in the pond. In the thick underwater grass, we placed wicker tops – “norota” – on the lines. I myself took out golden heavy fish covered with mucus from the raised top and threw them to the bottom of the punt. Almost every day we returned with rich booty.

I knew well all the treasured corners of the familiar mill pond, its quiet creeks and backwaters, overgrown with blooming pinkish water porridge, over which bees hummed, transparent dragonflies flew and hung in the air. I saw the mysterious bottom, pitted with pond shells, along which the shadows of quietly swimming fish slid. A wonderful underwater world unfolded before my eyes. On the mirror surface, reflecting the white high clouds, shuttle spiders quickly ran. Swimming beetles swam beneath the dark green algae leaves.

On hot summer days, we caught fish in open creeks in a small way. It was pleasant to wade in the warm water, drag wooden wet “nags” to the shore, and pull out the drags covered with algae. Large and small fish fluttered and fluttered in the wide wet motley. We pulled a reel filled with fish ashore, selected large fish, and threw small fish into the water. Fish soup was cooked over a fire. Sitting down in the shade of the green coastal foliage, they slurped it with round wooden spoons. A simple fish soup made from fresh fish caught with your own hands, fragrant and smelling of fire smoke, is amazingly tasty.

In the summer, when the flax blossomed like blue stars in the fields, we went at night to a distant river to catch crayfish. At this time, the molted, hungry crayfish greedily went for the bait. The bait was frogs and small fish roasted over a fire. We tied frogs and fish to the ends of long sticks and lowered the baits near the shore to the bottom of the river. From time to time, after sitting by the fire, we walked around the placed baits, to which hungry crayfish were sucking. With a lantern in hand, we carefully lifted the bait, placed a small net under it and shook off the crayfish that had stuck to the bait into it. Night fishing for crayfish has been very productive. We returned home with bags filled with live whispering crayfish.

There were a lot of crayfish in both the pond and the river. They caught them with their hands under the bank in deep caves, under stones at the bottom of a shallow river that quickly ran along a rocky, slippery bottom. I vividly remember how, having rolled up my porticoes, I walked through the running water and, having carefully rolled away a flat stone at the bottom, in a cloud of rising light turbidity I saw a lurking tick-borne crayfish. I quietly bring my hand up, grab with my fingers the strong black back of the angrily splayed crayfish, and put it in the bag.

On dark summer nights we caught crayfish on the sandbanks of the pond. With a bunch of flaming dry birch splinters, we carefully walked around the shallows, with our hands we picked up crayfish crawling towards the shore on the illuminated bottom. This night hunt gave us great and joyful pleasure.

In late autumn, when the water in the pond becomes clear and the autumn nights are long and dark, my father sometimes took me hunting with “lights”. With prisons in our hands, we went out on a punt boat. At the bow of the boat, in an iron horned “goat,” resinous pine firewood burned brightly. The boat glided quietly along the motionless surface of the water. A fire blazed and smoked on the bow of the boat, illuminating the branches of bushes and trees hanging over the water, and the bottom of the pond overgrown with algae. An underwater fairy-tale kingdom opened up to our eyes. Near the sandy bottom, lit by a fire, we saw long shadows of large sleeping fish. You need good judgment and an accurate eye to spear a sleeping fish in the water. The stabbed fish were shaken from the spear to the bottom of the boat. There were wide breams, long pikes, ides, and slippery burbots. I will forever remember this night hunt. The familiar pond seemed unrecognizable. After traveling all night, we returned with the loot. It was not so much the loot as the fabulous picture of the bottom lit by a fire that delighted and excited me.

I. S. SOKOLOV-MIKITOV

Sixty years of active creative activity in our turbulent times, which have witnessed so many events and upheavals, is the result of the life of the remarkable Soviet writer Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov.

He spent his childhood in the Smolensk region, with its sweet, truly Russian nature. In those days, the village still preserved its ancient way of life and way of life. The boy's first impressions were festive festivities and village fairs. It was then that he organically merged with his native land, with its immortal beauty.

When Vanya was ten years old, he was sent to a real school. Unfortunately, this institution was distinguished by bureaucratic behavior and the teaching went poorly. In spring, the smells of awakened greenery irresistibly attracted the boy beyond the Dnieper, to its banks, covered with a gentle haze of blossoming foliage.

Sokolov-Mikitov was expelled from the fifth grade of the school “on suspicion of belonging to student revolutionary organizations.” It was impossible to go anywhere with a “wolf ticket”. The only educational institution that did not require a certificate of trustworthiness was the St. Petersburg private agricultural courses, where a year later he was able to get, although, as the writer admitted, he did not feel a great attraction to agriculture, just as, indeed, he never felt an attraction to settledness, property, domesticity...

The First World War found Sokolov-Mikitov in a foreign land. With great difficulty, he got from Greece to his homeland, and then volunteered for the front, flew on the first Russian bomber “Ilya Muromets”, and served in the medical detachments.

“Warm Earth” - this is what the writer called one of his first books. And it would be difficult to find a more accurate, more capacious name! After all, this native Russian land is really warm, because it is warmed by the warmth of human labor and love.

His stories about the voyages of the flagships of the icebreaker fleet “Georgiy Sedov” and “Malygin”, which marked the beginning of the development of the Northern Sea Route, date back to the time of the first polar expeditions. It was then that a bay named after the writer Sokolov-Mikitov appeared on one of the islands of the Arctic Ocean. The bay was also named after Ivan Sergeevich, where he found the buoy of Ziegler’s lost expedition, the fate of which was unknown until that moment.

He spent several winters on the shores of the Caspian Sea, traveling through the Kola and Taimyr Peninsulas, Transcaucasia, the Tien Shan Mountains, the Northern and Murmansk Territories. He wandered through the dense taiga, saw the steppe and the sultry desert, and traveled all over the Moscow region. Each such trip not only enriched him with new thoughts and experiences, but was also imprinted by him in new works.

This man of good talent gave people hundreds of stories and tales, essays and sketches. The pages of his books are illuminated with the wealth and generosity of his soul.

The famous Bolshevik, editor of the newspaper Izvestia I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov told his employees: “As soon as you receive anything from Ivan Sergeevich, forward it to me immediately. I love reading him, an excellent writer.”

The work of Sokolov-Mikitov is close to Aksakov’s, Turgenev’s, and Bunin’s style. However, his works reveal their own special world: not outside observation, but live communication with the surrounding life.

Sokolov-Mikitov's books are written in a melodious, rich and at the same time very simple language, the same language that the writer learned in his childhood.

In search of new visual means, back in the twenties, the writer turned to a unique genre of short (not short, but short) stories, which he successfully dubbed “fiction tales.”

To an inexperienced reader, these “tales” may seem like simple notes from a notebook, made on the fly, as a reminder of the events and characters that struck him.

We have already seen the best examples of such short, non-fictional stories in Leo Tolstoy, Bunin, Veresaev, Prishvin.

Sokolov-Mikitov in his “bylitsy” comes not only from the literary tradition, but also from folk art, from the spontaneity of oral stories.

His “fairy tales” “Red and Black”, “On Your Coffin”, “Terrible Dwarf”, “Grooms” and others are characterized by extraordinary capacity and accuracy of speech. Even in the so-called “hunting stories” he puts people in the foreground. Here he continues the best traditions of Aksakov and Turgenev.

Reading his short stories about Smolensk places (“On the Nevestnitsa River”) or about bird wintering grounds in the south of the country (“Lenkoran”), you involuntarily become imbued with sublime sensations and thoughts that the feeling of admiration for one’s native nature turns into something else, more noble - into a feeling patriotism.

“His creativity, having its source in a small homeland (i.e., the Smolensk region), belongs to the big Motherland, the great Soviet land with its vast expanses, innumerable riches and varied beauty - from north to south, from the Baltic to the Pacific coast,” said Sokolov- Mikitove A. T. Tvardovsky.

Not all people are able to feel and understand nature in organic connection with human mood, and only a few can simply and wisely paint nature. Sokolov-Mikitov had such a rare gift. He was able to convey this feeling of love for nature and for people living in friendship with it to his very young readers. Our preschool and school children have long loved his books: “The Body”, “The House in the Forest”, “Fox Dodges”... And how picturesque are his stories about hunting: “On the Capercaillie Current”, “On the Traction”, “The First Hunt” etc. You read them, and it seems that you yourself are standing on the edge of a forest and, holding your breath, watching the majestic flight of a rare bird, the woodcock, or in the early, pre-dawn hour, listening to the mysterious and magical song of the wood grouse...

Writer Olga Forsh once said: “You read Mikitov and wait: a woodpecker is about to knock over your head or a little bunny will jump out from under the table: how great it is, truly told!”

When we talk about the world of animals and plants, each line is permeated with wise simplicity, a happy combination of the psychological drawing of the hero’s image. In depicting nature, Sokolov-Mikitov undoubtedly inherited and developed the wonderful traditions of Russian art - the art of Levitan and Shitkin, Turgenev and Bunin.

Sokolov-Mikitov’s work is autobiographical, but not in the sense that he wrote only about himself, but because he always talked about everything as an eyewitness and participant in certain events. This gives his works an almost documentary persuasiveness and that poetic authenticity that so attracts the reader.

“I was lucky enough to become close to Ivan Sergeevich in the early years of his literary work,” recalls K. A. Fedin. “This was soon after the Civil War. For half a century, he devoted me so much to his life that sometimes it seems to me that it has become mine.

He never set out to write his biography in detail. But he is one of those rare artists whose life seemed to combine everything that was written by him.”

K a l e r i a Z h ekh o v a

Introduction

From childhood, from school, each of us gets used to the phrase “love for the motherland.” We realize this love much later, but to understand such a complex feeling - what exactly we love and why - is given to us already in adulthood.

This feeling is indeed complex: here is the native culture, and the native history, the whole past and the whole future of the people. Without going into deep reasoning, we can say that one of the first places in the complex feeling of love for one’s homeland is love for one’s native nature.

Some love the steppe, some love the mountains, some love the sea coast smelling of fish, and some love the native Central Russian nature, quiet beautiful rivers with yellow water lilies and white lilies, and so that the lark sings over a field of rye, and so that birdhouse on a birch tree in front of the porch.

But it must be said that the feeling of love for our native nature does not arise in us by itself, spontaneously, since we were born and raised among nature, it was brought up in us by literature, painting, music, by all those great teachers who lived before us and loved our native land and passed on their love to us, our descendants.

Don’t we remember by heart from childhood the best lines about nature by Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Alexei Tolstoy, Tyutchev, Fet? Do they leave us indifferent, do they not teach us anything about the descriptions of nature from Turgenev, Aksakov, Leo Tolstoy, Prishvin, Leonov, Paustovsky. Among these glorious teachers, the name of the remarkable Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov occupies a worthy place.

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov was born in 1892 on the land of Smolensk, and his childhood was spent among the most Russian nature. At that time, folk customs, rituals, holidays, way of life and the way of ancient life were still alive. Shortly before his death, Ivan Sergeevich wrote about that time and that world: : “My life began in indigenous peasant Russia. This Russia was my real homeland. I listened to peasant songs, watched how bread was baked in a Russian oven, remembered village thatched huts, women and men... I remember merry Christmastide, Maslenitsa, village weddings, fairs, round dances, village friends, children, our fun games, skiing from the mountains ... I remember a cheerful hayfield, a village field sown with rye, narrow fields, blue cornflowers along the borders... I remember how, dressed in festive sundresses, women and girls went out to harvest the ripe rye, colorful bright spots scattered across the golden open field, as they celebrated the harvest. The first sheaf was trusted to be compressed by the most beautiful, hardworking woman - a good, intelligent housewife... This was the world in which I was born and lived, this was the Russia that Pushkin knew, Tolstoy knew.”

Sokolov-Mikitov entered literature with his small homeland - the Smolensk forest side, with its Ugra River and the unique charm of the discreet and, in his own expression, seemingly shy beauty of his father’s places, deeply perceived by him during his simple rural childhood.

But it is difficult to call him only a “Smolensk writer”, “a singer of the Smolensk region”. The point is not only that the thematic range of his work is immeasurably wider and more diverse than the “regional material”, but mainly that in its general and basic sound his work, having its source in a small homeland, belongs to the big Motherland, the great Soviet land, and now great Russia with its vast expanses, innumerable riches and varied beauty - from north to south, from the Baltic to the Pacific coast.

A traveler by the recognition of his youth and a wanderer due to the circumstances of his difficult life, I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov, who has seen many distant lands, southern and northern seas and lands, carried the indelible memory of his native Smolensk region everywhere. He remains for his reader a native of the distant places of the Central Russian strip, a person whom the reader recognizes, as they say, “by pronunciation.” And maybe this feature informs the stories and essays of I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov has that sincere, trusting intonation that so captivates and endears the reader to him, and the work of our fellow countryman writer is again of a relevant nature. It is close to Aksakov’s, Turgenev’s, and Bunin’s style. However, his works contain their own special world: not outside observation, but live communication with the surrounding life.

The encyclopedia says this about Ivan Sergeevich: « Russian Soviet writer, sailor, traveler, hunter, ethnographer." And although there is a full stop next, you can continue: teacher, revolutionary, soldier, journalist, polar explorer. It is precisely this unique life experience that underlies his creativity.

Works by I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov, rightly, occupy a prominent place on the shelves of any library, public and personal. They are written in a melodious, rich and at the same time very simple language. They are dear to everyone who cherishes the treasury of wonderful Russian speech and the wealth of Soviet literature.

His books are not only a lyrical diary of hunting and travel wanderings, written by an inspired artist of the Russian narrative word. This is a story about a rich and fruitful life, illuminated by love for nature and the man himself of his native Russian land.

The topic of my essay“I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov and the Smolensk region.” I really liked some of the author’s works, so I wanted to know more about this man: what was he like? How did he live? What did you write about?

The purpose of my essay istrace the stages of life and creativity of I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov in the Smolensk region.

Tasks:

1. Get acquainted with the autobiography of I.S. Sokolova - Mikitova;

Consider the creative heritage of I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov of the Smolensk period;

Evaluate the contribution of I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov in the development of the Smolensk region;

The following publications helped me in my research work:

1. Literature of the Smolensk region. The textbook is a textbook on literary local history. 9th grade. - Volume 2.

Smirnov V.A. Ivan Sokolov - Mikitov: an essay on life and writing.

Sokolov - Mikitov I.S. On your own land.

4. Sokolov - Mikitov I.S. "Autobiographical Notes".

1. Life path of I.S. Sokolova-Mikitova

.1 The writer's childhood

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov - Mikitov was born on May 30, 1892 in the family of an honorary citizen who managed the forest lands of wealthy Moscow merchants Konshins - Sergei Nikitievich and Maria Ivanovna Sokolovs.

The Sokolov family lived in Oseky (near Kaluga) for three years. Then my father’s elder brother, who also served with the Konshins, came from the Smolensk province and persuaded him to move to his homeland.

The writer spent his childhood in the pre-revolutionary village of Kislovo, among his native Russian nature, in communication with the people, in the circle of ordinary affairs and concerns of the village people. And these first impressions of childhood forever left in the boy’s soul a deep and unquenchable love for his native land, for the working people, for the generosity, kindness and generosity of the Russian heart.

The boy grew up among abundant, almost untouched nature, surrounded by simple-minded, kind and hardworking people, who cordially rejoiced at every guest, and trustingly shared their shelter and table with every passer-by and traveler. The first, most vivid impressions were the impressions of folk festivals and colorful rural fairs. The first words heard are folk colorful expressions, the first fairy tales are folk oral tales, the first music is peasant songs.

The future writer inherited his love for his native language and figurative folk speech from his mother. Maria Ivanovna, a semi-literate peasant woman, a spiritually sensitive and caring woman, amazed everyone with her amazing knowledge of her native language, folk tales, fables and jokes; Every word of her speech was to the point. She knew how to tell stories simply and clearly for everyone. “Every word in her speech was always appropriate, always had its own special meaning and knowledge,” recalled Ivan Sergeevich, “until the end of her days, she surprised her interlocutors with the wealth of folk words, knowledge of proverbs and sayings.”

Ivan Sergeevich’s father was a gentle, kind and responsive person to people’s grief. He brought up these same qualities in his son, teaching him from childhood to be honest and fair, hardworking and inquisitive. Very often he took the boy with him on business trips and hunting. These trips and walks with his father were real holidays for the child. He loved to listen to his father's amusing stories about the forest and forest inhabitants, his funny tales full of extraordinary adventures and unprecedented miracles. The more the boy grew up, the closer and clearer his father became to him - his first friend and mentor. .

His “godfather,” his father’s older brother, had a significant influence on Ivan. Ivan Nikitich Mikitov was a knowledgeable, well-read man, to whom people from distant volosts came for advice. Even in his youth, he served on the Smolensk estate of the Pogodins (in Elninsky district), where the famous Russian historian M.P. came to visit more than once. Pogodin. The old man Pogodin fell in love with the young, smart clerk, and he took him to Moscow more than once. Under the influence of Pogodin, the “godfather” treated books with respect, and the names of great Russian writers were sacred in their house.

Happy, bright days of childhood, constant communication with nature, knowledge of the life of the people - all this could not but affect the work of Sokolov-Mikitov. “I owe the lyrical quality of my talent to the village world, to the simple people who surrounded me, to my native Russian nature,” he later wrote in “Autobiographical Notes.”

1.2 Study at the Smolensk real school

When the boy was ten years old, his father took him to Smolensk and enrolled him in the Alexander Real School. “From the usual silence of the forest, from the dear hunting freedom and calm home comfort,” said Ivan Sergeevich, “I found myself in a noisy, bustling city, in the monotonous, official atmosphere of the school.”

Life in the city, daily visits to a dull school seemed like hard labor to him. The happiest times were trips home, to the village, for winter and summer holidays.

The young man studied mediocrely and only in two subjects - natural science and drawing, which he truly loved - he invariably received good grades. From the fourth grade, he became interested in theater, although he was not distinguished by any acting abilities, and acted as an extra in various troupes that came to Smolensk on tour.

Sokolov-Mikitov's stay at the school coincided with a difficult time for Russia - with the defeat of the first Russian revolution and the dark period of reaction that followed. Naturally, the young man, whose sympathies were always on the side of the oppressed and disadvantaged, could not remain indifferent to the turbulent political events. He openly admired people who tried to fight reaction, attended secret gatherings of revolutionary youth, and read with interest the lines of revolutionary leaflets and proclamations. Based on the denunciation of the provocateur, the police searched his room, and “on suspicion of belonging to student revolutionary organizations,” Sokolov-Mikitov was expelled from the fifth grade of the school with a “wolf ticket.”

Expulsion from the school was the biggest turning point in the life of Ivan Sergeevich. From death, from the abundant sad fate of many desperate young people, he was saved by his nature, sensitivity and love of his father, who helped him in difficult times of his life to maintain faith in people, in himself and in his strength.

After being expelled from school for about a year, Ivan Sergeevich in his native Kislovo read a lot and voraciously. With books under his head, covered with an old overcoat that smelled of horse sweat, he slept in the open air, in the garden.

Communicating with people, Ivan Sergeevich thought and reflected a lot. The words were keenly remembered, I was amazed by the talent of the common people and the richness of the folk language. With youthful ardor, he painfully experienced injustice, inequality of people, felt the sharpness of contrasts: poverty and wealth, hunger and contentment. And I came to know and see more and more the diverse, very complex and multifaceted life of the village, so little known to city people.

.3 Studying in St. Petersburg and fateful acquaintances

In 1910, Sokolov-Mikitov came to St. Petersburg, where he entered a four-year private agricultural course, the only educational institution that accepted students without certificates and without “certificates of political reliability.”

However, he did not feel much attraction to agronomy and devoted all his free time to reading the books of the historian Pogodin and Leo Tolstoy, Gorky and Bunin, who were popular in those years in Smolensk, and A. Remizov, who was popular in those years. In the works of A. Remizov, Ivan Sergeevich met the world of folk tales, so familiar to him from childhood. He tries to write himself. Decides to quit courses and study literature. This was facilitated by the established literary acquaintances.

Once, in a small tavern on Rybatskaya Street, which was eagerly visited by students and journalists, Sokolov-Mikitov met the famous traveler and naturalist Z.F. Swatosh and, despite the age difference, quickly became friends with him. They shared a common love of nature and a passion for travel. Having learned that the young man was engaged in writing, Svatosh introduced him to the famous writer Alexander Green, and a little later to A.I. Kuprin, with whom Sokolov and Mikitov established warm friendly relations.

A. Green was one of the first who taught Sokolov-Mikitov to love and understand the sea, which later took a strong place in his life and work. He knew many of Kuprin's stories by heart, learned from them a living language, precise and laconic, captivating the reader with the power and freshness of his colors.

Having met the owner of the Revel Leaflet, Lippo, Sokolov-Mikitov willingly accepted the offer to become an employee of his newspaper and in the winter of 1912 he moved to Revel to the position of editorial secretary. At first, newspaper work completely captured the novice writer - he works as a feuilletonist, editorial secretary, daily writes editorials and correspondence on a variety of topics, and acts as the author of short stories and essays.

Revel in those days was a fairly busy seaport. Living near the sea further intensified the desire for distant travels.

A deacon from the Church of St. Nicholas the Sea, who brought notes to the newspaper, having learned about Sokolov-Mikitov’s passion for the sea, through connections at the naval headquarters helps him get a job as a sailor on the messenger ship “Mighty”. Sokolov and Mikitov set off on their first sea voyage on it. The impression he made was amazing; it confirmed the young man’s decision to become a sailor and marked the beginning of his sea wanderings.

Sokolov - Mikitov traveled almost all seas and oceans, visited Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Greece, England, Italy, the Netherlands, Africa. He is young, full of strength and health: “It was the happiest time of my youthful life, when I met and became acquainted with ordinary people, and my heart trembled with the fullness and joy of feeling the open spaces of the earth.” And wherever he was, wherever his sailor’s fate took him, he was primarily interested in the life of ordinary working people.

He later recalled with warm feeling these years, when “his heart trembled from the fullness and joy of feeling the open spaces of the earth.” This is how his “sea stories” were born, in which there is so much sun, salty wind, landscapes, foreign coasts, the noise of oriental bazaars, living portraits of people with whom everyday work brought him closer.

The First World War found Sokolov and Mikitov on a voyage abroad. With great difficulty he managed to return to Russia. Upon his return, he spent several months with his relatives in the Smolensk region, and at the beginning of 1915 he returned to Petrograd. There is a war going on and the young man decides to go to the front, for which he enrolls in a Brothers of Charity course. However, the young man still devotes all his leisure time to literary pursuits.

In 1916, in the literary and artistic collection “Gingerbread”, published by A.D. Baranovskaya in favor of orphaned children, stories by I.S. were published. Sokolova - Mikitova “The Spring Haste”, “Cuckoo’s Children”. This collection, which consisted of works by minor and little-known writers, also included such writers as A. Blok, S. Yesenin, A. Akhmatova.

In the same 1916, the first fairy tale by Sokolov and Mikitov, “The Salt of the Earth,” was published. Written based on Russian folklore, it revealed the eternal theme of national happiness, expressing the writer’s aspirations about the time when everything dark and evil on earth disappears in the rays of the never-setting sun.

In addition to this big theme, there was another in the fairy tale - that all phenomena in nature are interconnected and it is impossible to disturb the harmony of this relationship, since one without the other is doomed to death: “where there is water, there is a forest, and where the forest is cut down, there and the water dries up."

After leaving the course, Sokolov - Mikitov volunteered to join the active army. He is appointed as an orderly to the sanitary transport detachment of the Princess of Saxe-Altenburg, in which pro-German sentiments reign. The command, without hesitation, indulged open and secret German agents. Sokolov-Mikitov was openly indignant at the betrayal and after several clashes with his superiors he was expelled from the detachment.

After graduating from the aircraft mechanics course, he joined the Airship Squadron as a junior mechanic on the Ilya Muromets bomber, whose commander was the famous pilot, fellow Smolensk countryman Gleb Vasilyevich Alekhnovich.

In the essay “Glebushka”, written in the newspaper “Birzhevye Vedomosti”, Sokolov-Mikitov wrote about his commander like this: “Many aviators became aviators out of the blue, because of fashion, by accident. Glebushka has bird blood. Glebushka was born in a bird's nest, he was born to fly. Take away the song from the poet, and the flying from Glebushka, and both will wither.”

Sokolov-Mikitov was one of the first Russian writers at the dawn of aeronautics to develop a “flight landscape” in literature. He gave an artistic description of the earth from a bird’s eye view and spoke about the extraordinary sensations of the conquerors of the sky: “Flight is swimming, only there is no water: you look down, as you looked at the cloudy sky overturned in the mirror surface. This is the awakening of the “bird” in a person, giving a feeling of extraordinary happiness, a prehistoric memory of the time when a person flew on his own wings over a dense land covered with water and forests.”

After the February Revolution I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov, as a deputy from the front-line soldiers, comes to Petrograd. He is transferred to the 2nd Baltic Fleet Crew. Throughout the summer and autumn of 1917 he lived in Petrograd, by the will of fate he found himself in the thick of political events. He speaks at soldiers' rallies and talks about the ugly truth of the war, publishes front-line essays and sketches in progressive newspapers and magazines. At the same time, he willingly attends literary debates and continues to meet with A. Green and M. Prishvin.

M. Prishvin worked for the newspaper “Will of the People” and edited the literary supplement “Russia in the Word”, in which he invited Sokolov-Mikitov to collaborate. Constant communication with each other, debates about the educational value of literature, a negative attitude towards the war, which both saw with their own eyes, considered hostile to man, and therefore hostile to life in general - all this brought the writers even closer together and strengthened their relationship.

In the hot October days, Sokolov-Mikitov, captured by revolutionary events, listens to the speeches of V.I. Lenin in the Tauride Palace, meets with A.M. Gorky. Gorky was sympathetic to his literary experiences, helped with good advice, and from then on it was clear to Ivan Sergeevich that literature was the main work of his life.

The revolution was the final turning point in his life: Sokolov - Mikitov became a writer. He embodied his unwavering desire to wander, his keen interest in the people he met along the paths of life, in the precise and expressive prose of an enthusiastic and captivating narrator. Bottomless wanderings in foreign lands with an unquenchable longing for his homeland in his soul gave him material for “Chizhikov Lavra” - a sad story about people thrown into a foreign land by force of various circumstances.

Excellent knowledge of the Russian Smolensk village - both in its pre-revolutionary times and in the initial years of the October formation - is captured in a whole series of stories about people of the old new soul, about the fundamental changes taking place in the rural wilderness, about the struggle of contradictory and hostile principles in its consciousness residents. The author speaks about this period of his creative biography: “In those years, I was very closely connected with the village, I hunted, wandered around a lot with a gun and wrote down something, jokingly and seriously, “from nature.” As always, I was amazed by the vitality of the Russian person, his natural humor, intelligence, and penchant for invention.”

At the beginning of 1918, Sokolov-Mikitov demobilized and left for the Smolensk region. He looked with interest at the new things that were entering the life of the village, significantly changing its appearance.

With a gun on his back, he wandered along the forest roads of his native land, willingly visited the surrounding villages, noting and writing down everything that would later serve him as material for such cycles of stories as “On the Nevestnitsa River”, “On Forest Paths” and the peculiar “Records of Old Years” "

In 1919, Sokolov-Mikitov taught at the Dorogobuzh city junior high school in the Smolensk region, where he moved with his family. Despite his lack of teaching experience, he quickly made friends with the guys. In literature classes, he spoke very clearly and meaningfully about the works of classics of Russian literature, and also talked about overseas countries and funny hunting adventures.

He really wanted to create a real children's magazine in which children directly participate: they write themselves, draw themselves and edit themselves. He was fascinated by the idea of organizing a “children's commune”, so fascinated that he wrote and, in an extremely short time, published a small book, “The Source is the City,” in which he defended and developed the idea of harmonious education of youth.

This little book, according to the writer, could have marked the beginning of his teaching career, but, feeling that he lacked knowledge, experience and skills, he abandoned the idea of becoming a teacher. He was drawn to wander again, he wanted to see the sea, which he had missed all this time.

In the spring of 1919, at the invitation of a comrade and classmate, Smolensk fellow countryman Grisha Ivanov, as representatives of the Pre-Prodelzapsevfront, they went south to the grain-growing regions in their own heated vehicle. More than once travelers were on the verge of death. In Melitopol, they miraculously escaped from the clutches of the Makhnovists who captured the city, were captured by the Petliurists near Kiev, and served in the counterintelligence department of Denikin’s general Bredov.

Sokolov-Mikitov barely managed to get into Crimea and become a sailor on the small old ship “Dykh-Tau”. Sea wanderings began again. He again visited many Asian, African, and European ports.

At the end of 1920, on the ocean-going ship Omsk, loaded with cotton

seed, Sokolov - Mikitov went to England. When "Omsk" arrived in

Gul, it turned out that the self-proclaimed White Guard authorities secretly

sailors were sold the ship to the British, and Sokolov - Mikitov together with

with his comrades, Russian sailors, he found himself in a foreign, inhospitable country without a means of subsistence.

Ivan Sergeevich lived in England for more than a year. Without a permanent job and a roof over his head, he wandered around rooming houses, doing odd jobs, he became convinced from his own bitter experience of the injustice and hostility of a world alien to him.

In the spring of 1921, he managed to move from England to Germany, to Berlin, which was overcrowded with Russian emigrants.

In 1922, A.M. came to Berlin from Russia. Bitter. As an eyewitness to the latest events in his homeland, emigrants flocked to him. Together with A.N. Tolstoy went to Gorky and Sokolov - Mikitov. Gorky approved the intention of Sokolov and Mikitov to leave for Russia at the first opportunity and promised to assist him. And in the summer of the same year, the necessary documents were received and Sokolov-Mikitov, with Gorky’s letter to Fedin, left for Russia on a small German steamer.

In the summer of 1929, he, together with northern researchers, was on an expedition to the Arctic Ocean (the cycles “White Shores” and “At the End of the Earth”), in 1930 on Franz Josef Land, in the winter of 1931 - 32. - in an expedition organized to rescue the wrecked icebreaker "Malygin" ("Save the Ship"), in 1933 - in the Murmansk and Northern Territories, participated in the expedition to raise the icebreaker "Sadko" in Kandalaksha Bay, which sank in 1916.

In a word, wherever courage, firmness, and perseverance of character are clearly manifested in the fight against harsh nature, he, following the call of his indefatigable nature in search of nature and his duty as a writer, was always in the forefront. A faithful friend of the conquerors of still little explored spaces, he is with them in the untrodden taiga with a hunting rifle on his back, and in the cockpit, and in the huts of winterers in the far North.

In March 1941, Sokolov-Mikitov settled in the village of Morozovo not far from Leningrad, where the war found him. Ivan Sergeevich, not accepted into the militia due to his age, was left to while away the hunger and cold in the village.

In June 1942, he and his family had to evacuate to the Urals, where Sokolov-Mikitov settled in Perm and served in the forestry department. During the evacuation, he prepared and submitted to the publishing house a collection of stories and essays “Above the Bright River”, essays “On the Ground” and “The Day of Evdokia Ivanovna” and others.

.4 The last years of the writer’s life

The last twenty years of I.S.’s life Sokolov - Mikitov were associated with the Kalinin region. Here, in Karacharovo on the Volga, a hundred steps from the water, on the edge of the forest, stood his simple log house. Very often guests came to the writer, his friends - writers, travelers, polar explorers. [Appendix 6]

In the last years of his life, the writer willingly returned to the theme of the Russian village of pre-revolutionary and transitional times - to folk tales, recordings of conversations with land workers, to concise and accurate sketches of meetings, conversations, to portrait and speech characteristics.

In 1965-1966 4 volumes of the collected works of I.S. were published. Sokolov - Mikitov, which included all the most significant things created by the writer over more than fifty years of his literary activity.

Finding himself in almost complete darkness by the mid-sixties due to loss of vision, Ivan Sergeevich did not stop working. He could not write, did not see the lines, but his memory still remained bright. The discs of the recording machine were spinning, and the muffled voice of the writer sounded above the table. The words were placed on the tape. [ Appendix 7]

In 1969, his book “At Bright Origins” was published, in 1970 - “Favorites”, as well as new books for children.

For the fruitful literary activity of I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor and medals.

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov - Mikitov died on February 20, 1975 in Moscow. The funeral was modest, without an orchestra and big loud speeches: he did not like them during his lifetime.

A hundred days later his wife, Lydia Ivanovna, died. Their ashes were buried in one grave near Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov - Mikitov went through a difficult life path. But from all the trials he emerged stronger mentally and spiritually.

A traveler by the vocation of his youth and a wanderer due to the circumstances of a difficult life, I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov, who had seen many distant lands, southern and northern seas and lands, carried with him everywhere the indelible memory of his native Smolensk region.

2. Creativity of I.S. Sokolova - Mikitova

.1 "Elena". "Childhood"

Mikitov writer work

The Smolensk region emerges from the pages of the stories of I.S. Sokolov - Mikitova “Elen”, “Childhood”, stories “On the Warm Land”, “On the Bride River”, recordings from long ago “On Our Land”, which the author calls “bylitsa”; The peculiar language and traditions of our region are reflected in “mischievous fairy tales” and the collection of stories and fairy tales for children “Kuzovok”.

The stories that make up these cycles reflect the life of an entire generation of Russian peasants in the critical twenties; here the poetry of nature, like the poetry of everyday life, is reflected in all its immediate freshness and purity.

In the stories “Elen” and “Childhood,” Ivan Sergeevich tried to remember that old village, which “now no longer exists on Smolensk land,” that way of life and thoughts of the villagers that was on the eve of the “great break of the old.” It was as if he was examining the past from all sides for the last time, perhaps remembering his own words, expressed a little later, in one of his books: “Unless we know how to look into the past, we will not learn to see the future.”

The story "Elena"- a combination of two stories about the family of the landowner Dmitry Khludov and the family of the peasant - forester Frol, supplemented by short stories about peasants and the small nobility, stories in which Khludov and Frol are direct or indirect participants. The life of the forester Frol alone with nature and the destruction of forests by the Khludovs - this opposition is, as it were, a hidden engine, an internal unifying idea of the story. The lyrical tonality of previous works of similar themes in “Eleni” is colored with the tones of epic writing. In addition, “Elen” is literally permeated with a feeling of love for the people and homeland, which the author feels organically spiritually and relatedly.

In the story, Sokolov-Mikitov, who in difficult turning-point years affirmed faith in the healthy principles of the Russian peasant, in whose “face” there is “so much life reserve, fun and kindness,” saw rural life in a new way. The story stated that without understanding the natural world, without true love for the life of his people, man and his relatives are doomed to extinction, if not physical, then at the first stage, moral. Depicting the process of degeneration of the Khludov dynasty of timber merchants, the author simultaneously showed merchant robbery, which traumatized not only the living flesh of the forest, but also the soul of the Russian peasant.

And in “Eleni” and even earlier - in stories from the cycle “On the Nevestnitsa River”, in “Epics” (“On Your Coffin” and others) Sokolov-Mikitov reflected on the fate of the Russian forest, its significance in the life of the people, coming to the statement that indifference to nature is similar to indifference to the fate of the homeland - it leads to spiritual and even physical death (Khludovs, Kryuchins).

Tracing the formation of Frol's character, Sokolov-Mikitov showed the national type of peasant Russia that personified his homeland in his mind: strong, strong-willed, pure in soul and body. Frol's life is as pure as his thoughts. He reflects on the eternal questions that inevitably arise before people who live alone with nature. Dmitry Khludov, unable to live as purely and strongly, is not able to understand the nature of human existence, to feel it as intensely as the forester Frol. Khludov has no hatred for men - lumberjacks. Not wanting to love and not knowing how to hate, he is indifferent, there is no living force in him that could still support life in him.

He dies and is buried in the village graveyard by Frol, and isn’t this a symbol: the strong, spiritually pure future of the village is parting with its past.

The “inhabitants” of the story “Yelen” are easily recognizable as the inhabitants of Sokolov and Mikitov’s native villages - people who surrounded the writer himself in pre-revolutionary childhood and later, in the twenties: here is the friendly, shaggy, light and thin, invariably cheerful and raucous shepherd Avdey, knowing down to the last bush the forest and meadows and “the holes of every animal”; and the red-haired, big-armed, funny and mischievous joker with impudent, transparent, squinting eyes, the village troublemaker and rebel Sapunkok, whom the authorities consider for his cunning and fearlessness “The biggest rogue in the whole village; and Maksimenok, who constantly weaves nonsense; and dexterous, with shining eyes, “from which human complete happiness flowed,” neat, faithful and gentle Marya; and frantic village young women - dancers; and the gloomy Burmakin men clutching stakes on holidays, and the Burmakin hero, the calm and reasonable Pockmarked Nikolai and other dissimilar, different and at the same time spiritually close people, united by one grief, one suffering and common holidays, they all make up, as it were, a single national element .

The story "Elen" is one of the best works of our literature, located at the intersection of today's literature and literature of the 19th century, continuing and developing traditions from the writers of the sixties to Bunin and Kuprin.

Love for the land - the nurse, the native Smolensk region, for the people, their customs, traditions, way of life are embodied by the writer in his autobiographical story "Childhood"(1932). It consists of short stories: “Moving”, “Garden”, “Summer”, “Raft”, “Village”, “Father”. The actions take place in the village of Kislovo and on the road to it, in an estate, house, garden, on a river, in fields, vegetable gardens, in the village of Shchekino in a large dense forest, on the banks of the Ugra and the poetic river Nevestnitsa, where my grandfather, great-grandfather, and father lived.

A large place in the story is occupied by the image of the father, who was the first to teach the boy to love and understand the life around him, who introduced him to the wonderful and mysterious world of nature, and laid the foundations of the moral foundations of the future writer. Talking in the chapter “The Raft” about the admiration with which Sivy listened to his father’s tales about the raft on which two boys Seryozha and Petya made their exciting journeys along the Nevestnitsa River, the writer emphasizes that these tales left a lasting mark in his memory not only because that there were many funny adventures in them, but above all because they were always based on a deep educational meaning. Fairy tales took Greyback to a distant land of justice and goodness, where love, humanity and camaraderie triumphed, where there was no place for evil and violence.

“Childhood” talks about the same events and people as in the story “Helen”, only a decade earlier. Thus, the prototype of the Khludov dynasty of timber merchants (“Elen”) was undoubtedly the family of millionaires Konshins (“Childhood”), for whom, as is known, the writer’s father served as forest manager.

“Gray Idols” (“Yelen”) and “Men - Rafters” (“Childhood”), Frol and the forest land manager Sergei Nikitich, the young lady Kuzhalikha, who went bankrupt and was “burned” in the hungry year of 1917 (“Yelen”) and other characters The stories have many common characteristics. And the events themselves unfolding in the story “Childhood” lead to the action taking place in “Elenya”. When preparing the stories for republication, Sokolov-Mikitov even considered them as a whole narrative, perhaps that is why individual chapters and episodes of “Elenya” (the chapter “Fun Fair”) repeating the content of “Childhood” were excluded by the writer and were not included in the four-volume collection his writings.

Just like in “Elenia,” “Childhood” contains many amazing pictures of Russian nature, landscapes permeated with the author’s feelings and thoughts. They seem to be inseparable from the entire atmosphere of the old Russian estate where they originated.

And although the hero of the story claims that he has nothing to regret from the past, he still “sorries only broods of grouse, village songs and sundresses, which once filled a child’s feelings of joy and love, which no force can now return”, now in the Smolensk region “ the village youths and girls no longer lead round dances on the mountain,” rarely, rarely will a sundress appear on the street, and rarely will they play an old drawn-out song in the evening.”

In the story “Childhood”, as well as in the stories “On the Warm Land”, “Rendezvous with Childhood”, Sokolov-Mikitov emphasized the inextricability of the connection between the life and fate of the hero with the image of the homeland, the unity with the fate of his people: “When I talk about the life and fate of a boy with With an open, fair-haired head, this image merges with the idea of my homeland and nature.”

For Vanya, the hero of the story “Childhood,” the future was determined by the “Blue, sounding, dazzling world.” Then the warmth of the golden miracle merges with parental love. Successfully developed relationships with people subsequently determined the writer’s creative position in depicting people and established in him a bright idea of the Russian people. Sokolov-Mikitov himself defined the origins of his special, lyrical talent as follows: “I owe the lyrical quality of my talent to the rural estate world, the simple people around me, and Russian folk nature.”

I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov believed that Russian nature, depicted in a work of art, can become truly beautiful and attractive if it is decorated with genuine human feeling; it all depends on the mood of the soul that the artist who paints it has. Only he will imprint in it national self-consciousness who, due to his spiritual development, knows how to connect the world in which he lives with the world of his own ideas and moods. Therefore, in Sokolov and Mikitov, man and nature are always interconnected; they act as equals in the living world. This determined the unique mood of Sokolov-Mikitov’s works for six decades. Already in his early stories, nature is the same character as man himself (“Glushaki”, “Honey Hay”).

A person in his relationship with the world, nature, a kind person on a good land, a dreamer with a romantic soul - such is the hero of Sokolov and Mikitov's stories of the twenties.

.2 “Honey Hay”

In the story “Honey Hay” by I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov outlined, in essence, a very sad story of the illness and death of the village girl Tonka, who suffered a difficult fate.

After a ruinous trip to Siberia for a better life, her father Fyodor Sibiryak died. Her mother, Marya, after the death of her husband, at the most hungry time, found courage and strength in herself - she resisted, survived and saved her children from starvation, but from poverty and grief she became deaf and stupid. And Tonka had to harness herself to work. And although God did not offend Tonka with her beauty, or her stature, or her good character, he did not give her a share; Tonka could not get married - the widow’s court was poor.

Ever since the winter, she and the village went across the river into the forest to lift a firewood out of the snow, moved in the forest, on par with the men, she strained herself, began to dry out, and has been ill ever since. Every day she felt the end approaching close to her, and said goodbye to the whole world around her: she was waiting for the spring sun, she saw spring for the last time. Tonka said goodbye to her housework: she did something while she had the strength - she spun for the winter, pulled the tow with her thin fingers, peeled potatoes, prepared her mortal meal, as she used to prepare her dowry.

Tonka’s behavior before death is not sacrifice; she really wanted to live, but a sober understanding by a simple village girl of her uselessness in life. Saying goodbye to life, she did not fall into despair, but admired the spring riot of greenery - the warmth, the sun, the rye filling the fields and the honeyed smell of hay. “She sat for a long time under the birch trees, saying goodbye to the green world that gave birth to and nurtured her. And there were many people like herself in this sparkling, happy world.”

There are many other characters in the story: frank women who, without hesitation and without fear of saddening Tonka, told her about an early end; Tonkin's uncle Astakh, a shaggy, black and carefree man who scolds women for their frankness; Tonka’s friends, who, in order to please her, searched the entire forest in search of raspberries; Tonka's fiancé Oska, greedy for a dowry, has left for Moscow; no one knows whether firewood or Oska put her to illness. The village is full of life, and even in the churchyard where Tonka wanders, she is greeted by eternal life: “Under the birches above Ivan - yes - Marya, a yellow-bellied bumblebee buzzes, and yellow-lilac flowers sway under its weight,” sun-warmed honey comes from the green young hay breezes. And when the worst happens, the day is so powerfully sunny and clear that death cannot darken it: “Cross the river, taking off your shoes, stepping on the cold bottom, covered with pebbles, playing with golden patterns... The morning was golden; like an endless blue sea, the earth was smoking and waking up. And Tonka’s coffin seemed insignificant, completely drowned in the shifting blue and shining world, swaying on the shoulders of the girls. And precisely in order to express the full power of this brilliant, spacious and forever indestructible world, the larks, invisible in the high sky, poured over the girls all the way.”

The writer pays tribute to the departed man, who, even in his mortal illness, could not “remain without care,” and always did something, “while he had the strength,” for the benefit of people.

But the writer, like the people themselves, is not disarmed by loss if it is natural. The earth and earthly worries about life give him the strength to overcome grief in order to move forward along earthly roads and see the world in its joys.

In the landscape of I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov, where the writer, it would seem, is freer in fiction than anywhere else, we will never encounter pretentiousness, a desire to amaze with unusualness: “The spring crops are ripening, and not all the meadows have been harvested yet. Clean and clear morning. The web is flying. The willows along the ditches and the tops of unmown overripe grasses are covered with cobwebs. Swallows swim high in the sky and swifts cut through the air. Pieces of fog float over the lowland, over a quiet river overgrown with alder trees. Seeds of overripe grass stick to boots wet from dew. From under the short stance of a pointing dog, a moulted black grouse flies out with a crash. High, high in the sky, a buzzard hawk is whining. Voices can be heard in the transparent silence of the morning.”

The main property of the Sokolov-Mikitov landscape, which came to him from the old Russian masters, is its subtle and precise subordination to the main idea. The landscape became part of the writer's ideological and artistic structure of the story, essay or story. Using artistic means that were simple at first glance, the writer achieved amazing results; he seemed to introduce the reader to the eternal and joyful creativity of life, to the generous self-creative nature and flow of national life.

.3 "Kamchatka", "Gypsy"

Story "Kamchatka"about how the Smolensk men were planning to go to Kamchatka. “There was such a rumor about the wonderful land of Kamchatka. In the village, rumor runs uncontrollably, like the wind in the forest; if it stirs a little, the forest is speaking from edge to edge.”

The writer with a kind smile tells us how the rumor about Kamchatka grew and spread, which was brought by the blacksmith Maxim, who went to the city for iron: “Well, my brothers, I saw a man at the station, a very faithful little man, he told me that we had arrived at the station people are calling people to Kamchatka. They give fifty chervonets per snout, the journey here and there, and the journey across all of Siberia takes two years. Sitny - as much as you want! But we need men to go to Kamchatka to dig for gold. It's a simple matter."

The men were on fire, either from the eternal longing of the Russian soul for the paths and distances, or simply driven by dashing boredom, or the hope of a well-fed life and earnings beckoned (this winter the men served their butts to the blisters), and here is government grub - eat as much as you can, and The most trivial thing is to dig for gold. Don't yawn, ah - yes, guys! The village went wild and began to stir: as if a demon had inserted sharp awls into the peasants. That day came, the men collected their wallets and grabbed enough bread for the day - after all, the grub was government-issued! - and ah - yes!

“It’s unknown how they walked there. Only on the third day were my godfather and friend Vaska at home, and on the fourth they still went out hunting early - early. And when, having lured a deaf grouse with a whistle, we stopped with a successful hunt to rest under an old spruce tree and lit a fire, I learned the truth from Vaska.

We arrive, and there’s nothing there, not this office. The police were alarmed - they thought a gang was coming. “What are you doing?” - they ask. “To Kamchatka?” - "Yes!" - They say.
There were about fifty of us at the station,” Vaska continues, chewing lard, “we’re walking around, rummaging around.” In the evening - bam! They surrounded us: “You’re welcome to surrender!”, locked us in a barn, wasted the night, and in the morning we were interrogated: “Why did they make the accumulation?” Here we are all clear: “So and so, we say, we came to sign up for Kamchatka.” - “Have you eaten too much henbane?!” What is Kamchatka like? Well, they see for themselves, there is no gang here, all the people are peaceful, they laughed at us in the yards. “Go, they say, don’t be a fool, such ignorance is unacceptable during a revolution!” So we set out to spend the night.
Well,” I say to Vaska, smiling, “now do you believe in Kamchatka?”
“Who knows,” Vaska answers seriously, “it’s a simple matter!” You can hear - no plowing, no sowing. Happy Land!

“Suddenly it begins to seem to me that everything is possible, that somewhere there is a fabulous happy land of Kamchatka,” the author concludes his story. The writer shows the age-old desire for the “promised land”, for the country “with milk rivers and jelly banks” in this work.

In "small the story of the Gypsies"the writer reproduces the scene of lynching of a gypsy horse thief. Horse thieves appeared in the village. Bald Gavrik's two horses were taken from the yard. A week later the men met two gypsies in the forest. One ran away along the road - the man couldn’t catch up with the gypsy in the field! And the other was brought to the village for trial and execution. Vaska Artyushkov went out the gate and saw Kuzma Knyazkov running along the street, his mouth wide open, and calling on everyone to beat the horse thief. Behind Knyazkov is Grishka Evmenov, behind Grishka is Chugunok himself. Vaska, as he was, a fur coat on one shoulder - there. The people are in droves. And from the people you can hear: how yes! - like chopping wood. They beat the gypsy, threatened to kill him, and asked where the horses were. He was silent as a stone. They brought Lexa - he was “one of our gypsies”, he had settled in the village for about twenty years, he knew everyone in the area, horse thieves. But Lexa did not help - on the contrary, he said that a gypsy should not give up his brother, even if he skinned him or burned his heels, and walked away. They beat the horse thief until the evening: the gypsy lay on the floor, face down, red bubbles on his beard. Finally, he confessed where the horses were. There was only one point - he didn’t name anyone as an accomplice. The men brought the horses; the horses had not eaten for three days - they were skin and bones. They started beating the gypsy again. Enraged peasants are ready to kill him. After all, a horse thief is the eternal enemy of a man. But the gypsy, speaking, asked: “Let me in, brothers, I’ll play the accordion for you!” They brought him an accordion. The gypsy wiped the blood on his muzzle with his palm, the accordion on his knee and along the frets - like silver. And women from all over the village came running to listen to the gypsy. The gypsy played for an hour, then played for two - until late in the dark night. The women did not let the gypsy go for three days. The gypsy got up... and went. So the gypsy left, and no one knew who was there or where he came from.

The gypsy left, but they remembered for a long time: oh, for such a game, it’s not a pity to forget two horses! And the very first sounds of music return the lost human form to brutalized people. Cruelty and bitterness disappear, giving way to goodwill and respect for skill. The writer seems to be saying: a working person is by nature kind and grateful, receptive to beauty, and only the difficult, inhuman conditions of a powerless existence in a society where a minority lives through the ruthless exploitation of the masses give rise to anger and bitterness in him.

A tireless thirst for wandering across the expanses of his homeland, the desire to see more, learn more, and communicate with people of various professions leads the writer as a tireless traveler in all directions of the geographical map. And everywhere this tireless explorer of uninhabited places - a wonderful expert on animal and bird habits, a faithful companion on the road and an inquisitive interlocutor - remains a keen observer of not only the captivating climatic diversity of his homeland dear to his heart, but also a soulful reflector of human destinies and characters. One can say more: a man of courageous and romantic professions - a geologist, pilot, sailor, polar explorer and discoverer - becomes the center of his writing interests.

The main artistic feature of I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov - to write about what they themselves lived, entered into the soul, warmed the heart. This is precisely what explains the factual and psychological authenticity of his works that immediately captivates the reader, and their poetic charm.

Conclusion

When I read the works of I.S. Sokolova - Mikitova, not for one minute does the feeling leave me that all the heroes are the author’s friends, in any case, his good acquaintances, about whom he knows absolutely everything, but only tells the most important thing, expressing their human essence. No wonder most stories are written in the first person. And this is not just a literary device, but the author’s guarantee for the complete truthfulness of what is being told.

I.S. Sokolov - Mikitov writes restrainedly and laconically. Using sparse visual means, he conveys the subtlest movements of the human soul, reproduces discreet, but long-lasting pictures of Russian nature in the memory.

Like a good wizard, the writer makes the most ordinary, unremarkable things suddenly visible and interesting. In his image, a simple spider turns into a “living precious stone” and remains in the child’s memory for a long time, and a modest wild flower acquires such an attractive force that one wants to immediately go to a forest clearing to enjoy its delicate beauty, which one, as if in passing, accidentally made one feel writer in his story. You read and wait: a woodpecker is about to knock over your head or a little bunny will jump out from under the table, so everything is great, truly told.

From the books of Sokolov - Mikitov, I learned many interesting and useful things for myself. The writer introduces us to the world of nature, teaching us to peer vigilantly into the life around us, to notice the patterns that underlie the most important life processes, and at the same time he never lectures. He simply teaches us to observe and be surprised at what unexpectedly opens up to our eyes.

The peculiarity of Sokolov-Mikitov's writing gift is that the author does not invent anything, does not invent, does not look for complex plot structures, but directly enters into the course of life, talks about what actually happened, narrates about people and events that really existed or existing ones. But, like a true artist, he chooses and composes circumstances in his own way, surrounds them with such a vividly drawn everyday and natural environment that everything that is most everyday and everyday becomes a phenomenon of highly human art, moreover, imbued with a soft lyricism that seems to glow from within.

Books by Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov Mikitov are necessary for readers of any age. They have a huge reserve of kindness and love for people, for nature, for the living beauty of life. This is precisely why the name of Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov Mikitov is not forgotten. A museum of the writer has been opened in the village of Poldnevo, Ugransky district.

Competitions named after Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov Mikitov are held. For example, on May 30, 2011, in the village of Poldnevo, Ugransky district, the results of a regional competition of literary creative works among children, dedicated to the work of I.S., were summed up. Sokolov-Mikitova.

On February 2005, the Smolensk Regional Children's Library was named after the wonderful Russian writer, our fellow countryman I.S. Sokolova-Mikitova .

Literature

.Literature of the Smolensk region. The textbook is a textbook on literary local history. 9th grade. - Volume 2. - Compilation. Methodological materials. G.S. Merkin. - Smolensk: TRAS - IMAKOM, 1994. - 528 p.

Smirnov V.A. Ivan Sokolov - Mikitov: an essay on life and writing. - M. - Sov. Russia, 1983. - 144 p.
Sokolov - Mikitov I.S. On your own land. - Magenta Publishing House, 2006.
Sokolov - Mikitov I.S. "Autobiographical Notes". - Publishing house
"Moscow", 1966. P. 635 - 642.
Sokolov - Mikitov I.S. “Bylitsy”, - Smolensk, 1962. - 175 p.
Sokolov - Mikitov I.S. “Kamchatka”, - Smolensk, 1962. - 52 p.
Sokolov - Mikitov I.S. “Honey Hay”, 1979. - 333 p.
Sokolov - Mikitov I.S. “Gypsy”, Smolensk, 1962. - 71 p.
Life and work of I.S. Sokolova - Mikitova. - Moscow, 1984.

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The work of I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov is a significant page in the history of Russian literature of the twentieth century. For many years it was customary to consider him only a “singer of nature” and traditionally put him in a row: M. M. Prishvin, K. G. Paustovsky, V. V. Bianchi. The writer really had a very subtle feel for nature, knew how to find colors and tones to convey the sometimes elusive “breath of life.” But this is only one side of his multifaceted talent, far from exhausting the entire depth and originality of the writer. During the Soviet years, Sokolov-Mikitov’s books were widely published, but mainly in the Children’s Literature publishing house, which indicates the narrowness of approaches to the study of his creative heritage.

Modernist writers of the early twentieth century, in particular, the work of A. M. Remizov, had a great influence on the formation of the young prose writer. At different stages of his literary path, he relies on the traditions of L. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, I. A. Bunin, M. Gorky. The writer had a Christian understanding of the world and man. Therefore, today we can talk about the spiritual realism of I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov, which allows us to look differently not only at his works, but also at the personality of the author himself.

Ivan Sergeevich Sokolov-Mikitov was born on May 30 (17), 1892 in the Oseki tract near Kaluga in the family of Sergei Nikitich Sokolov (from the name of his grandfather, the second part of the surname: Mikitov), manager of a forest estate. His childhood years were spent in the forested Smolensk village of Kislovo, in his father’s homeland. In 1903 he entered the Smolensk Alexander Real School, from where he was expelled from the 5th grade in 1910 “due to poor academic performance and bad behavior,” “on suspicion of belonging to student revolutionary organizations.” In the same year he goes to St. Petersburg and enters a four-year agricultural course. In the capital, I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov met the writers A. M. Remizov, A. I. Kuprin, A. S. Green, M. M. Prishvin, V. Ya. Shishkov, which determined his future fate. In 1911, he created his first work - the fairy tale “The Salt of the Earth”, where you can see the complexity that is characteristic of the plots not of folklore prose, but of the literary fairy tale of the 90s. XIX century. The young author dedicates his work to A. M. Remizov, who was his reader and critic.

At the same time, he became seriously interested in aviation, and during the First World War, together with the famous pilot G.V. Alekhnovich, he made combat missions on the Russian bomber Ilya Muromets.

I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov takes his first steps in the literary field, but the dream of wandering does not leave him. He leaves for Revel, works for a short time at the newspaper “Revel Leaflet”, and for the first time finds himself on the deck of a ship as a sailor. Throughout his life the writer will carry a bright, grateful love for the sea.

In 1920, Ivan Sergeevich went as a helmsman on the steamship "Omsk" on a voyage around Europe. In England, a dockers' strike delayed the ship for a long time, which was soon sold by the White Guard authorities without the knowledge of the sailors. In 1921, painfully homesick, Sokolov-Mikitov moved to Berlin. In 1921-1922 a number of his stories, articles and essays were published in the emigrant magazines “Firebird”, “Modern Notes”, newspapers “Voice of Russia”, “Rul”, “Nakanune”.

Sokolov-Mikitov’s books “Kuzovok”, “Where the Bird Does Not Build a Nest”, “About Athos, About the World, About Fursik and Others” are published in Berlin and Paris. He meets with M. Gorky, A. N. Tolstoy, S. A. Yesenin, A. M. Remizov, corresponds with I. A. Bunin and A. I. Kuprin, meets B. A. Pilnyak.

In the summer of 1922, the writer returned from forced emigration to Russia. After wandering abroad, the years of life in the Smolensk region (1922-1929) were the most fruitful. In Kochany, he writes cycles of stories “On the Nevestnitsa River”, “On the Warm Land”, “On His Land”, “Sea Stories”, the story “Chizhikov Lavra”, as well as his best works - the story “Dust”, the story “Helen” and much more.

In 1930-1931 His cycles “Overseas Stories”, “On the White Land”, and the story “Childhood”, which I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov considered his most precious creation, were coming out of print. It is in her that the origins of creativity and personality, the very Russian national talent of Ivan Sergeevich.

The beginning of the war found the writer in a Novgorod village. With the onset of spring 1942, thanks to the intervention of the Writers' Union, the family of I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov was evacuated to Perm (then Molotov), where he works as a special correspondent for Izvestia. In the summer of 1945, Ivan Sergeevich returned to Leningrad.

In the 1940-1960s. the writer travels a lot around the country, meets with different people, keeps notebooks, collects material for future books everywhere (“Stories of a Hunter”, “By the Blue Sea”, “Above the Bright River”, “Through Forests and Fields”, “On the Warm Land” " and etc.).

In May 1952, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, at the request of the Kalinin Regional Executive Committee, allocated I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov a plot of land in Karacharovo, where the writer lived for many years. A small but comfortable house, purchased in a village beyond the Volga, was transported here and quickly assembled in a new place: “At the end of May - beginning of June we will celebrate “Vlazins”” (4, 310), Ivan Sergeevich wrote to K. A. Fedin in April 1952 In a letter to V.G. Lidin we read: “This spring I built a cell on the Volga, not far from Zavidovo, from the very places where we once hunted together... It seems to be easier to breathe here...” Indeed, here the writer sought solitude from the hectic city life, “hidden” from a personal tragedy (the death of his daughter), and rested his soul. In Karacharovo he indulged in memories and thoughts about the past and present. Here he found peace. In his letters from different years we find: “visit the holy Karacharov hermits”, “bestow grace”, “biography of our monastic life”, “Karacharovsky cell”, “monastery”, “Karacharovsky monastery”, “hermitages”. “This heavenly life seems boring to me, an inveterate sinner.”

I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov came to this house, located in a picturesque place near the Volga, for twenty years. It was visited by many guests, including K. A. Fedin, V. P. Nekrasov, V. A. Soloukhin, V. Lifshits, A. T. Tvardovsky (sometimes with his fellow Novomirites V. Ya. Lakshin, I A. Satsem and others), A. D. Dementyev, who had just entered the literary path at that time, academician surgeon B. A. Petrov; opera director, Honored Artist P. I. Rumyantsev, grandson of the famous historian M. I. Pogodin, employees of the Pushkin House; close friend, writer V.B. Chernyshev and many others.

By the way, it was in Karacharovo that K. A. Fedin received the news that he had been awarded the honorary title of academician. It is also known that A. T. Tvardovsky read in Karacharovo the newly written poem “Terkin in the Next World,” which he specially “brought to court” to I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov. In general, Tvardovsky loved to visit Karacharovo: “I still live with the close and pleasant memory of our Karacharovo walks, grooming, or better yet, grooming, conversations, etc. It’s true, I remember that time with a very good feeling...” From here Ivan Sergeevich shared with a friend creative ideas: “I would like to talk about what I have seen and experienced, about my many years of wanderings and meetings with people, about the Smolensk village of the past... Of course, this will not be a broad narrative or novel... These will be simple and, if possible, truthful notes about what I have seen and experienced and experiences - about Russia, about people, about what the people of my, not very happy, generation had to see and experience" (4, 385).

It is also interesting that M. I. Pogodin organized an exhibition of the history of Karacharov, ordering from Leningrad reproductions of paintings by the artist and vice-president of the Academy of Arts G. G. Gagarin, on whose estate the Karacharovo holiday home is now located, drawings by M. Yu. Lermontov, a friend of Gagarin, as well as documents indicating that the name of the estate came from the boyar Karacharov, who was the Muscovy ambassador to Italy, to whom these lands were granted by Emperor Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible.

“Karacharovsky House” greeted everyone with a special atmosphere of human warmth and participation, timeless. N.I. Mazurin recalled: “There is no luxury in the house. Ivan Sergeevich did not even want to hear about decorating it in an urban manner - say, about wallpapering or covering the pine floorboards with linoleum. There were no glass bookcases either. They were replaced by plank shelves, such as used to be found in any village hut.”

I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov was a master of conversation who knew how to recognize something deep and good in his interlocutor. He was not only an amazing storyteller who traveled the earth, meeting interesting people, but also an attentive listener. Whenever possible, the writer tried to take an active part in the lives of those people with whom his fate confronted him.

Ivan Sergeevich actively collaborates with the Kalinin Writers' Organization, corresponds with P. P. Dudochkin, meets with Kalinin journalists N. I. Mazurin and I. V. Razzhivin, and speaks on regional radio. As N.P. Pavlov notes in his book “Russian Writers in Our Region,” “with his characteristic simplicity and goodwill, he very soon became friends with the regional literary association and began to take a close part in its work.” The regional publishing house published his books “The First Hunt” (1953), “Falling Leaves” (1955), “Stories about the Motherland” (1956), etc. An amateur film was made about the writer’s stay on our land.

In 1952-1953 Sokolov-Mikitov significantly improved “Childhood”, writing the chapters “Moving”, “Road”, “Study”, “Kochanovskaya Grandma”, “Satin Slipper”, “The Death of Uncle Akim”, “Sukhodol”, which significantly enriched the content of the story and strengthened it social sound. They reveal more fully the world surrounding the main character, the atmosphere in which the personality of the future writer was formed and developed. At the same time, Sokolov-Mikitov more sharply highlights in these chapters those ugly sides of everyday life that the observant boy could not help but see, and which the mature writer would later bitterly say: “I have nothing to regret from this past. I only feel sorry for the broods of grouse, village songs and sundresses, I feel sorry for the childhood feeling of joy and love that once filled me. And it’s sad for me to remember a lot of things” (1, 96).

I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov has admitted more than once that the story “Childhood” is the most dear to him: “This is written about something very far away, but how close it is to my heart.” A declaration of love to his small homeland, the Smolensk region, sounds loudly in the work. From here, as young men, the author took with him into the big world a feeling of filial love for Russia “fields and forests, folk songs and fairy tales, living proverbs and sayings, the homeland of Glinka and Mussorgsky, the eternal pure source of bright words from which great writers and poets drew their spring water... “This is the basis of his worldview, life behavior, aesthetic and moral program.

New chapters of the story “Childhood” were published in the regional literary and artistic almanac “Native Land” (in the 6th and 7th books for 1954), of which he was then a member of the editorial board. The editors more than once invited him to write something about the Upper Volga region, but Ivan Sergeevich delicately refused, citing the short deadlines: “I write and always wrote slowly, “tightly”, I don’t know how to write hastily at all” (4, 349).

A special place in the work of this period is occupied by the “Karacharov Records”, where Sokolov-Mikitov asserts the close connection between the past and present of Russia, between history and modernity. “Karachar’s primitiveness” is near and dear to the writer, but he is concerned about man’s consumerist attitude towards nature. The narrative is built on the contrast of “then” and “now”. In the past (then) - “cheerful steamship whistles” and “the large estate of the princes Gagarins”, today (now) - “a neglected park”, “several houses and outbuildings”. Speaking about the dammed Volga, the writer recalls the ancient Russian city of Korchevo, which was flooded during the construction of the Ivankovo reservoir in 1937. Ivan Sergeevich regrets the irretrievably lost county town, reminiscent of the fabulous Kitezh City.

Comparisons of pre-revolutionary life and everyday life of the peasants of the Smolensk (“horns”) and Tver (“goats”) provinces are not without interest. Sokolov-Mikitov highlights such qualities of Tver peasants as hard work, mastery of crafts, self-esteem, and the ability to see the beauty of nature. The author, in particular, notes: “Despite the close proximity of the Smolensk and Tver provinces, the customs and rituals of the peasants were different. And the Tver men themselves were not like our Smolensk men. Tver peasants wore good boots and dressed in jackets. Many were engaged in shoemaking, leatherworking, painting and construction, and built new houses in St. Petersburg.”

In everything that Ivan Sergeevich writes about, one senses knowledge of the issue and careful selection of material. It is amazing how reverently Sokolov-Mikitov treats the history of our ancient region, how carefully he strives in his notes to revive and preserve it for future generations. According to the author, the historical memory, which is embedded in the names of the places where he lives, is capable of reviving the past: “Many cities are called by ancient names. We pass the ancient Torzhok, Vyshny Volochyok, each of these cities reminds of the distant past. More than once I have been to the village of Gorodnya, which stands above the Volga on an ancient high mound. There is a nice old church, a small cemetery, from where a wonderful wide view of the Volga opens. There is another village called Novy, with a church and a high bell tower. According to the stories of old-timers, in past times there were three lively taverns in this village, and shops selling various goods.”

I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov expounds with genuine interest the legend about the origin of the ancient Yurye-Maiden Monastery, and writes with pain and bitterness about another monastery (Otroch Dormition Most Pure Monastery), on the site of which the building of the river station rises in Kalinin. Continuing the conversation about the history of the Tver region, the writer focuses on its original name: “Not far from Karacharovo lay the border between the Moscow and Tver principalities.”

Ivan Sergeevich often asked his interlocutors about Tver places, about Lake Seliger and Ostashkov, about the source of the Volga, where he dreamed of going in his youth. He wrote a short but succinct preface to N.I. Mazurin’s book “On Seliger,” where he expressed his opinion on the importance of publishing local history literature: “We really need such books. They awaken love for their native land, its riches, and teach them to take care of ancient monuments and nature itself.”

Living in Karacharovo, I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov loved to wander through the local forests. So, with A.T. Tvardovsky he visited the Petrovsky Lakes. This journey was reflected in the “Karacharov Notes”, in the essay “On My Own Land”, published in I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov’s collection “At Bright Sources” (1969), and later organically became part of the memoirs of Tvardovsky, published in the last book writer "Old Meetings". It was a story about Orsha Moss - a huge peat massif near Kalinin (Tver). In the center of this moss are the “mysterious, almost inaccessible” Petrovsky Lakes with three inhabited islands (they were even called “sub-capital Siberia”). Sokolov-Mikitov notes that special people live here, unlike others, isolated from the bustle of the city, who have preserved ancient customs. It is noteworthy that in the essays the writer touches on the same topic, which runs like a leitmotif through all of his work - the destruction of the once rich noble estates, which used to be cultural nests: “The noble estates that adorned the famous highway with an elegant necklace have almost been wiped off the face of the earth.” (Moscow, Saint Petersburg. - E. V.). In the essay, this “famous road” along which kings and queens, Pushkin and Gogol traveled, is called the “Radishchev road.” I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov was again surprised by the “abundance of noble nests in the former Tver province.”

During this “amusing journey,” Ivan Sergeevich was also struck by the ancient village of Spas-na-Sozi, where he saw an ancient tented church, cut down without a single nail:

“There were no icons or decorations in the church, but even from the few surviving objects, from the iron patterned castle, from the columns of the ruined iconostasis, one could see what a high artistic taste our great-grandfathers, who once lived on the land of Tver, possessed.”

The writer also visited Ozerki, where the Kalinin writer S.V. Ruzhentsev then lived, who considered Sokolov-Mikitov his godfather in literature. They were introduced by A.V. Parfenov, who at that time headed the Kalinin book publishing house. It turned out that Ivan Sergeevich studied in Smolensk with Sasha Ruzhentsev, S.V. Ruzhentsev’s uncle. During this visit, Sokolov-Mikitov became interested in the stories of the mother of the owner of the Ozerkovo house about meetings with the famous teacher, people's educator S. A. Rachinsky, whom L. N. Tolstoy himself knew well and visited twice in the Smolensk region. Ruzhentsev’s mother visited his unique school in the village of Tatevo several times.

In addition, as S.V. Ruzhentsev recalled, it was at this time that his “short course at the hunting academy of Ivan Sergeevich” began. And the impetus for everything was that the guest saw in the house a book by N.A. Zvorykin, whom he personally knew.

I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov is deeply convinced that not every person can be a hunter. The writer’s concern is understandable: “I think it would be reasonable to restore order in our hunting grounds, limit hunting where necessary, give forests and water areas a rest, and restore the former abundance of living creatures.<…>After all, what is happening around, to put it bluntly, looks like criminal waste. Take the same Kalinin places. Thousands of hunters come here. Even from my house I hear firing, like at the front. They don’t kill so much as they scare away and maim. Can this be called hunting? Hunting is an art: “The art of marksmanship requires great experience and skill and, like any art, is given only to a few” (3, 46). In Sokolov-Mikitov’s notebooks we find a very original comparison: “Hunters, like writers, are talented and untalented.” Hunting, in his deep conviction, is a state of mind. Hunters are observers of nature who have not forgotten how to “hear and see the movement of the earth’s juices.” Man and nature are components of a single indivisible whole. Unfortunately, this connection is lost. And the people themselves are to blame for this. Sokolov-Mikitov pointed this out more than once in letters to P.P. Dudochkin: “Only the fish in the “Moscow Sea” are dying. That's bad. Is it really the Kalinin plant that releases poison into the water?” (4, 350). The writer was one of the first to raise environmental problems and draw the attention of local authors to them. In another letter to the same addressee we read: “It’s good that you wrote for “Crocodile” about fishing matters... We need a law. This is both in the protection of nature and in the protection of monuments of Russian antiquity, which are destroyed and perish without a sniff of tobacco. This is, apparently, our Mother Rus'” (4, 352). We see that he takes an active life position and is not indifferent to what is happening on Kalinin land. Sometimes pain and despair overwhelm him: “The fields on the district collective farms remained unharvested. It’s sad to look at such... disorders up close!” (4, 310).

As far as possible, Sokolov-Mikitov also monitors what is going on in the local writers’ organization: “What is happening now in Kalinin literary life? Is the bloody war continuing or has peace finally arrived? Who is who and who is for whom? Hot people apparently live in Kalinin! Since the Tatars" (4, 352). In “Diaries” he gives an even more critical assessment of the writing Kalinin intelligentsia: “...Everyone screams, like at a village wedding, no one hears anyone. “Without brakes” is a Russian, wild trait, and that’s how everyone lives “without brakes,” without the ability to control feelings, language, and thoughts. Confusion, noise." This state of affairs could not suit the writer. This may have been one of the reasons why he did not work more closely with the regional writers' organization.

It should be noted that I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov also collaborated with regional newspapers. Thus, in “Kalininskaya Pravda” the writer acted as a reviewer of the book by A. Haveman and B. Kalachev “Stories about Hunting”, published by the Kalinin Book Publishing House in 1953. In this book, according to Sokolov-Mikitov, “narrates the diversity and richness of living nature Kalinin region, about hunting techniques and methods,” which are described quite well. We know that the reviewer could judge this completely professionally, since he himself was an “experienced hunter.” Ivan Sergeevich emphasizes the educational significance of this book, since “the authors carefully talk about the most important, fundamental quality of a real hunter: a careful, loving, economic attitude towards living nature.” It is precisely this attitude towards nature that distinguishes the work of I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov himself. He knew how to capture subtle sounds, smells, and shades. A clear indication of this are small notes published in the regional youth newspaper Smena. In summer (autumn? – E.V.) members of the editorial board met with Sokolov-Mikitov in Karacharovo and asked him for a parting message for the newspaper to young readers entitled “Love and take care of nature.” After some time, the author sent a short sketch, “The Awakening of Spring,” in which he demonstrated his ability to subtly notice details and capture mood changes in nature. From this “golden bar” (editor’s assessment) the writer’s short and episodic collaboration with Smena began, where a little later the notes “April”, “May”, “A short March picture” and “April picture” were published.

I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov was keenly interested in how things were going with literature for children in Kalinin. He spoke well of Viktor Khomyachenkov’s poems. He was especially interested in the work of the then aspiring Kalinin poetess Gaida Lagzdyn. In his letters, he also reviews some of the works of P. P. Dudochkin. Thus, Sokolov-Mikitov evaluates his fairy-tale creativity very positively (“the fairy tales are good”), but draws attention to the fact that it is necessary to strive for depth of style and versatility of the narrative: “The picture should not be monochromatic, but similar to a rainbow” (4, 351). Dudochkin’s book for children “Next to Us” was published under the editorship of Sokolov-Mikitov. Sokolov-Mikitov as an editor is a special topic. The illustrator of the book, E. D. Svetogorov, was amazed by his brief, accurate assessment of the drawings. The artist saw in him not only a writer, but also a graphic artist and a painter-teacher. During these years, Sokolov-Mikitov himself actively collaborated with the publishing house "Children's Literature", where, among others, the book "Karacharovsky House" (1967) was published. Continuing the traditions of Russian classical literature for children, the writer instructively, without excessive edification, narrates in an accessible way about the life of animals, birds, and spiders. The stories included in the book are simple and poetic. Each of them is at the same time a small scientific treatise.

It was during the “Karacharov period” that Ivan Sergeevich acted as a memoirist: the book of memories and diary entries “Old Meetings” (1964-1975), created by him until the last day of his life, contains portrait sketches of M. Gorky, I. A. Bunin, K. A Fedina, V. Ya. Shishkov, A. S. Green and others. The essays are distinguished by the subtlety of their assessments and give an idea of the literary tastes, worldview and position of the author himself.

It is noteworthy that for the first time the memory of Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Shishkov was published in Kalininskaya Pravda (1973, October 3). The author begins his essay with a conversation with Gorky abroad: “Remembering the Leningrad writers, Alexey Maksimovich was the first to mention the name of V. Ya. Shishkov. It's clear. We talked about Russia, and, of course, the first name that came to mind was that of an eminently Russian writer” (4, 172). First of all, the high rating given to Shishkov attracts attention. Ivan Sergeevich also reconstructs his first acquaintance with Vyacheslav Yakovlevich. He notes that he was struck by “inhuman warmth, Russian friendliness, the ability to joke cheerfully” (4, 172). Sokolov-Mikitov does not skimp on the epithets that characterize Shishkov: “a lively, Russian, wonderful person.” Throughout his life, Sokolov-Mikitov carried the memory of him as a beloved and faithful friend, an excellent writer, a sympathetic and warm-hearted person. However, so was he himself.

Thus, the Tver region was most directly reflected in the writer’s works. Therefore, the “Karacharovsky” period of I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov’s life becomes quite significant in understanding his creative heritage. It deepens and corrects the idea of the worldview and aesthetic positions of one of the remarkable Russian writers of the twentieth century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sokolov-Mikitov I. S.. Collected works: In 4 vols.: Fiction. 1985-1987. T. 1-4.

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