Message about the life and work of Mzoshchenko. Biography of Zoshchenko. Years of the Great Patriotic War

Zoshchenko Mikhail Mikhailovich (1894-1958) - classic of Russian literature, satirist, translator, playwright and screenwriter. In his satirical works, he ridiculed cruelty, philistinism, pride, ignorance and other human vices. According to his stories, director Leonid Gaidai made the comedy "It Can't Be!"

Birth and family

His father, Mikhail Ivanovich Zoshchenko, born in 1857, belonged to a noble family from Poltava. He is a famous Russian mosaic artist, graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts. He worked in a mosaic workshop and St. Petersburg magazines "Niva", "Sever" as an illustrator. His mosaic panel "Departure of Suvorov from the village of Konchanskoye to the Italian campaign of 1799" still adorns the museum of the great commander. For this work, Zoshchenko was awarded the Imperial Order of St. Stanislav, 3rd class. His works of art exhibited at the State Tretyakov Gallery, as well as in the museums of Krasnodar and Yekaterinburg.

Mom, Elena Osipovna Zoshchenko (maiden name Surina), born in 1875, was also noble origin. Possessed artistic inclinations, before marriage she played in amateur theater. Then eight children were born one after another (one of them died in infancy), and Elena Osipovna devoted herself completely to their upbringing and household chores. At the same time, she found time to write short stories and publish them in the Kopeyka newspaper.

Childhood

Michael was the third child and the first son, two girls were born before him. The family lived on the Petrograd side in a house with several apartments on Bolshaya Raznochinnaya Street.

In 1903, the boy was assigned to St. Petersburg gymnasium No. 8. He studied poorly, especially in Russian, which was extremely surprising, because even then Mikhail began to compose his first stories and was going to become a writer.

Having received at the final exam for the essay "unit" with the postscript "nonsense", Zoshchenko became furious and tried to commit suicide - he swallowed a crystal of sublimate (mercury chloride). Then he was kicked out.

Youth

In 1913, Misha became a law student at the Imperial University. But a year later he was expelled for non-payment. Their family always did not live well, and after their father died in 1907, they had to drag out an existence almost in poverty and poverty. Mikhail went to work for the Caucasian Railway as a controller.

A year later, Zoshchenko went to the front of the outbreak of the First World War. He did this not out of any patriotic motives, he just couldn’t sit in one place, his soul demanded a change. However, during his service, he managed to distinguish himself - he participated in many battles, received a shrapnel wound in the leg and gas poisoning, and was awarded four orders.

Gas poisoning did not pass without a trace, in February 1917, Zoshchenko's heart disease worsened, he was sent to the hospital, and from there to the reserve.

labor path

Before engaging in literary activity, Mikhail managed to master and change many professions. Returning from the front, he was appointed to the post office of St. Petersburg as a commandant. Such a place was considered honorable, he even relied on a horse with a droshky and a room at the Astoria Hotel.

Six months later, Zoshchenko was sent on a business trip to Arkhangelsk, where he was caught by the revolution. Mikhail was offered to leave the country and go to France, but he refused. In Arkhangelsk, he received a new appointment as adjutant of the squad. Then he was elected secretary of the regimental court.

From Arkhangelsk, fate threw Zoshchenko to the Smolensk province, where he worked as an instructor in breeding chickens and rabbits.

At the beginning of 1919, he voluntarily joined the Red Army, but after another heart attack, he was declared unfit for service and demobilized. Mikhail was assigned to the border guards as a telephone operator.

Returning to St. Petersburg, Zoshchenko joined the criminal investigation department as an agent. Then he worked as a clerk in a military port, managed to learn carpentry and shoemaking.

Literary activity

In the summer of 1919, when he was still working as an agent in the criminal investigation department, Zoshchenko began to visit a literary studio. He did not make loud statements that he wanted to become a writer, he just sat quietly in the corner, did not participate in discussions, was embarrassed to show his writings. He was even nicknamed "the eccentric policeman." But when he nevertheless decided to read his story, the audience laughed. Korney Chukovsky, who was in charge of the studio, got acquainted with other works by Zoshchenko and identified his obvious talent for literature.

Gradually, in the studio, Mikhail met many writers of that time. In 1921 he became a member of the Serapion Brothers literary community. The following year, 1922, the Serapions published their first almanac, in which Zoshchenko's story was also printed. The publications immediately drew attention to the young writer. Friendship with the "Serapion brothers" was maintained by Maxim Gorky, he began to carefully follow the work of Mikhail and patronize him in every possible way.

Zoshchenko's writings began to be regularly published in humorous publications:

"Hippopotamus";
"Amanita";
"The laugher";
"Inspector";
"Weird";
"Buzzer".

In the same breath, people from different strata of society read his stories, novels and feuilletons:

"Aristocrat";
"Black Prince";
"Hurry business";
"Trouble";
"Retribution";
"Cup";
"Bath";
"Marriage of convenience";
"Kerensky";
"Disease history".

Mikhail's popularity grew rapidly, and phrases from humorous stories became winged among the people. His literary heyday came in the period 1920-1930s. Zoshchenko traveled a lot around the country with performances, his works were reprinted large circulations, collected works in six volumes. In 1939, for his creative achievements, the writer was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

The author also wrote a lot for children. The first stories were published in the children's magazines "Chizh" and "Hedgehog" - "Grandma's Gift", "Yolka", "Smart Animals". Then whole collections of works for young readers came out - "Lyolya and Minka", "The Most Important". In 1940, his children's book "Stories about Lenin" was published.

Personal life

While still a student, Mikhail met a pretty girl, Verochka Korbits-Kerbitskaya. She was graceful and thin, like a porcelain figurine, with a pretty little face and chestnut curls, slightly mannered, very talkative, always in airy outfits and with a hat. In her album, Zoshchenko made a note for memory: "Men do not believe in love, but they talk about it criminally, otherwise there is no access to the female body." This was Mikhail's problem - he did not know how, like millions of ordinary people, to enjoy simple things, for example, love for a woman.

Fate separated them after they met, and in 1918 brought them together again for a long forty years, full of partings and reconciliations. They got married by accident. In 1920, Zoshchenko's mother died, and then Vera offered to move in with her. He went with this woman to the registry office and moved his simple belongings to her house - a small desk, a bookcase, a carpet and two chairs.

When her husband began to receive the first writer's fees, Vera furnished the apartment with furniture, bought paintings in gilded frames, porcelain shepherdesses and a large spreading date palm. Zoshchenko, this change of scenery not only did not please, but, on the contrary, caused melancholy. He left his wife with his newly born son Valerka and moved to the House of Arts. At the same time, Mikhail periodically visited the family, but not in order to visit, but because he was firmly convinced that the official wife should feed him dinner, wash his clothes and help in correspondence.

Zoshchenko called his wife an “old woman”, drowned out his blues in endless love affairs, but Vera endured everything, understood that this was not a bad character, but an incurable disease. Mikhail's novels were short-lived and cynical, he liked married women. He visited the homes of his mistresses and met their husbands. But all this did not bring the writer relief from longing. Going through all his love affairs in his memory, he understood: the more women there were, the more meaningless life became. He drove himself into a corner.

Depression

His friend Korney Chukovsky said that Misha should be the happiest person on earth, because he has everything - beauty and youth, fame, talent and money. But instead, the writer was devoured by such depression that he could not take up a pen and avoided any communication with people. Zoshchenko did not leave the house for two weeks, did not shave, sat in his room and was silent.

It got to the point that in 1926 he turned to a psychiatrist. Mikhail complained that he could not eat from longing, and from irritability to sleep, everything interfered with him - the tram bell on the street, the dripping of water from the tap. The doctor examined the patient and advised him to read small humorous stories every time before going to bed or eating, for example, by such an author as Zoshchenko. The patient answered sadly that he was the same author of Zoshchenko.

Having received no qualified help, he took up the books of the Russian academician Pavlov and the German psychoanalyst Freud, trying to heal himself. Mikhail tried to unravel the causes of his melancholy and depression.

He analyzed all his life, recalled every case that could provoke the current blues:

Moments arose in my memory when the mother weaned him, a two-year-old boy, from the breast, smearing it with bitter quinine.
At the age of three, a local doctor performed an operation on him without anesthesia. Misha then cut himself, but the harmless wound began to fester, which could lead to blood poisoning. He clearly remembered how the shiny scalpel cut through his flesh.
As a six-year-old child, he witnessed how a neighbor's youth drowned in a roadside ditch.
He remembered the unsuccessful cares of his mother about the pension, when they remained poor after the death of his father, since then he has always been haunted by the fear of poverty.
A picture arose before my eyes when, in the war, after a terrible gassing, he woke up and saw dead colleagues around him and even birds falling dead from trees.

War

Mikhail was not taken to the front because of his age and heart problems. He stayed in Leningrad, joined the fire defense. In the autumn of 1941 he was evacuated to Alma-Ata, where he collaborated with the Mosfilm studio. Zoshchenko wrote scripts for the films "Fallen Leaves" and "Soldier's Happiness". In his free time, he continued to compose the main work of his life.

In 1943, the October magazine published the first chapters of the novel. But this publication turned out to be a disaster for the writer. The magazine "Bolshevik" published a devastating article about how Zoshchenko is engaged in "psychological picking" when the whole people are fighting against the German invaders. The article also said that the ailments in which the author of the novel drowned were not peculiar to Soviet people.

Clouds gathered over Zoshchenko, the continuation of the novel was forbidden to be published, persecution and persecution began. His work was criticized by Stalin and Zhdanov, calling it "disgusting", and the author himself "the scum of literature" and "a coward".

Last years

In 1946 Zoshchenko was expelled from the Writers' Union. In order not to die of hunger, he began to earn extra money as a translator. Mikhail steadfastly endured all the hardships, but in 1954 he broke down. Just after Stalin died and Konstantin Simonov procured Zoshchenko to be returned to the Writers' Union again. After many years of seclusion, Mikhail began to feel depressed, and his health was deteriorating.

He lived in Sestroretsk at the dacha. In the spring of 1958, he was severely poisoned by nicotine, after which, due to a spasm of the brain vessels, he did not recognize his relatives, problems with speech began. The day before his death, he regained the ability to speak. For the first time in many years, Mikhail clung tightly to his wife and said: “How strange, Verochka ... How absurdly I lived.” That same night, July 22, 1958, the writer's heart stopped.

Burying Zoshchenko at the Volkovsky cemetery in Leningrad was forbidden by the authorities. His grave is in Sestroretsk, his wife, son and grandson are buried nearby.

On August 10, 1895, the boy Misha was born in St. Petersburg - one of eight children in the poor noble family of Zoshchenko. His father, Mikhail Ivanovich, was an itinerant artist and served at the Academy of Arts. Some of the older Zoshchenko's paintings are kept in the Tretyakov Gallery and the Museum of the Revolution. Misha's mother, Elena Osipovna, once played on stage, and after her marriage she wrote stories and published them in the capital's magazine Kopeyka.

Misha inherited his mother's talent - from the age of eight he composed poetry, and at thirteen he wrote his first story, called "Coat". True, literary abilities did not affect his studies. At the age of nine, Misha was sent to the eighth St. Petersburg gymnasium, and he studied very mediocrely, and, oddly enough, had the worst marks in the Russian language. Subsequently, Zoshchenko himself was quite surprised by this, because since childhood he dreamed of becoming a writer. But the fact remains: at the final exam, Mikhail received a unit for writing. For a seventeen-year-old boy, such an assessment was a huge blow, and he even tried to commit suicide - according to him, not so much from despair as from rage.

Zoshchenko's father died in 1907, leaving the family practically without a livelihood, but Elena Osipovna still found the opportunity to pay for the gymnasium, and in 1913 Mikhail Zoshchenko became a student at the Faculty of Law. However, six months later, Mikhail was expelled from the university - the family did not have money to pay for his education. And in the spring of 1914, Zoshchenko went to the Caucasus, where he became an inspector on the Kislovodsk-Minvody railway line, and at the same time worked part-time as private lessons. In the autumn he returned to St. Petersburg, but instead of the university he decided to military career.

Mikhail became a cadet of the Pavlovsk Military School (volunteer of the 1st category), but still did not want to study - he took accelerated military courses and in February 1915 went to the front with the rank of ensign. Zoshchenko did not experience any patriotic sentiments about the outbreak of war - rather, he wanted some kind of change, thus fighting his tendency to melancholy and hypochondria. However, the future writer fought quite successfully, and his comrades-in-arms did not notice any melancholy behind him, at least in battles.

Zoshchenko ended up in the Caucasian Grenadier Division, already in November received a shrapnel wound, and in December - the rank of second lieutenant. In the summer of 1916, he was gassed and, after the hospital, he was expelled into the reserve. But Zoshchenko did not want to serve in the reserve regiment and returned to the front in the fall. In November, he became a company commander and staff captain, and almost immediately began to act as a battalion commander. During the war, he received four orders and was presented to the fifth, but he did not manage to receive either the Order of St. Vladimir or the rank of captain - the February Revolution broke out in Russia. In the same month, Mikhail was diagnosed with a consequence of poisoning - a heart defect, and he was nevertheless demobilized. In the summer of 1917, Zoshchenko was appointed commandant of the Petrograd post office, but in October Mikhail left this position and went to serve in Arkhangelsk - adjutant of the 14th Arkhangelsk squad and secretary of the field court. By the way, here he was offered to emigrate to Paris, but Mikhail refused - after the October Revolution, he accepted Soviet power without hesitation.

In Arkhangelsk, Mikhail met his first love, but Lada, the mother of three sons, who was waiting for her husband who had disappeared at sea, refused him, fearing that the capital officer would get tired of the provincial routine very quickly. Perhaps there was some truth in her words - Zoshchenko had an appearance that was very interesting for women. Handsome and delicate in an old-fashioned way, he aroused curiosity with his external arrogance, the cause of which was, in fact, the isolation of his character and leisurely movements.

In 1918, Zoshchenko returned to Petrograd and immediately signed up for the Red Army - first he served as a border guard in Kronstadt, then went to the front. In the spring of 1919, the disease again made itself felt, and Mikhail had to be demobilized. At that time, his bride, Vera Vladimirovna Kerbits-Kerbitskaya, was waiting for him in Petrograd, and the following year they got married - exactly six months after the death of Mikhail's mother. And a year later, Vera gave birth to a son, Valery, who later became a theater critic.

After the front, Zoshchenko changed more than a dozen professions, having been a carpenter, a criminal investigation agent, a clerk, and even an instructor in breeding chickens and rabbits. And all this time he was engaged in literature, more and more convinced that his true vocation was writing. Since 1919, he attended the literary studio organized by the publishing house "World Literature" under the direction of Korney Chukovsky. In 1921 Zoshchenko joined the literary group"Serapion brothers" and was a member of the faction, whose adherents argued that you need to learn to write from the Russian classics.

In August 1922, the Alkonost publishing house published the first almanac of the Serapion Brothers group, which included Zoshchenko's story. In the same year, his first book was published, entitled "The Stories of Nazar Ilyich Mr. Sinebryukhov." This collection of short stories became a real literary sensation. Maxim Gorky, impressed by Mikhail's talent, called him "a subtle writer" and "a wonderful humorist." Interestingly, the first translation of Soviet prose in the West is "Victoria Kazimirovna", a story by Zoshchenko, which was published by the Belgian magazine "Le disque vert".

Over the next few years, Mikhail Zoshchenko gained incredible popularity, and phrases from his stories became catchphrases. By the mid-twenties, he was considered perhaps the most famous Soviet writer, and his work was loved by people belonging to different social strata of society. Basically, Zoshchenko's fame was based on the fact that he created a new type literary hero- a Soviet layman who has neither education nor cultural baggage, primitive and with poor morals. The stories were written in an undoubtedly artistic and at the same time ordinary, non-literary, everyday language.

In 1927, the gradual liquidation of satirical magazines began in the Soviet Union, and some stories of the writer himself were recognized as "ideologically harmful." In 1929, his book Letters to a Writer was published, compiled from readers' letters and comments on them. The book was very similar to a sociological study and caused great bewilderment among many, because, out of habit, only funny stories were expected from Zoshchenko.

Of course, such changes could not but affect the writer, who was already prone to depression since childhood. A particularly depressing impression on him was made in the thirties by a group of writers on the White Sea Canal. There, Mikhail Mikhailovich met his Arkhangelsk love in one of the camps, who had no idea where her sons were now. After this trip, writing about the "re-education" of criminals turned out to be simply unbearable. In 1933, Zoshchenko published a story called "Returned Youth", trying to get rid of depression and somehow correct his psyche. This mental health book has been reviewed by scientific publications and discussed at the Academy of Sciences.

His creative fate was very strange: publications, popularity, material well-being, fame abroad, in 1939 - the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, but with all this - the constant attacks of criticism.

In the early days of the Great Patriotic War Zoshchenko tried to go to the front, but he was refused because of his health. In October, the writer was evacuated to Alma-Ata, in November he became an employee of the screenwriters department of Mosfilm, and in 1943 he was called to Moscow and offered the post of executive editor of the satirical magazine Krokodil. Mikhail Mikhailovich did not accept this position, but joined the editorial board of Krokodil. At the end of the year, two government decrees were adopted - one required increasing the responsibility of secretaries literary magazines, the second tightened control over these magazines. Zoshchenko's story "Before Sunrise" was declared "politically harmful and anti-artistic", and its author was removed from the editorial board of "Crocodile" and deprived of food rations.

Since 1944, Zoshchenko has been writing for theaters, and one of his comedies, Canvas Briefcase, has withstood two hundred performances in a year. But the publication of his works has practically ceased. Nevertheless, Mikhail Mikhailovich received the medal "For Valiant Labor", and in 1946 he became one of the editors of the Zvezda magazine. But in August 1946, after the infamous decree “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad”, Zoshchenko was expelled from the Writers' Union and again deprived of a food card. All contracts concluded with publishing houses, magazines and theaters were terminated. Zoshchenko tried to earn some money in a cobbler's artel, and Vera Vladimirovna sold their things ... Then translations became Zoshchenko's main income, and the name of the translator was absent in the books.

Mikhail Mikhailovich was reinstated in the Writers' Union after Stalin's death, but only for a year - in 1954, the persecution continued. Well-known writers rose to his defense - Chukovsky, Kaverin, Tikhonov. At the end of 1957, a book of selected works was published, but Zoshchenko's health and psyche were irrevocably undermined.

On July 22, 1958, Mikhail Zoshchenko died of a heart attack at a dacha in the city of Sestroretsk. The disgrace did not stop even after his death: the writer was not allowed to be buried in Leningrad. His grave is in the city cemetery of Sestroretsk. They say that in the coffin Mikhail Mikhailovich, who was distinguished by gloominess in life, smiled ...

The family was on the brink of poverty.

In 1913, after graduating from the St. Petersburg gymnasium, Mikhail Zoshchenko entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, but was expelled a year later due to non-payment of tuition.

At first he worked as a controller on the Caucasian railway. When World War I began, Zoshchenko volunteered for military service. He was enrolled as a rank and file cadet in Pavlovsk military school as a volunteer of the 1st category; after completing accelerated courses, he went to the front. Participated in many battles, was wounded, gassed. He was awarded four orders for military merit and was assigned to the reserve for health reasons.

In August, on the occasion of the writer's birthday, the Zoshchenko Readings are held annually in the Sestroretsk library named after Zoshchenko.

Mikhail Zoshchenko was married to Vera Kerbits-Kerbitskaya, the daughter of a retired colonel. He had a son Valery.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

“Nothing bad but good will happen,” wrote the classic and brilliant humorist Mikhail Zoshchenko.

It seems that providence itself decided to argue with the writer and prove that he was wrong. So many misfortunes and misadventures happened to Mikhail Mikhailovich that, under their burden, the prose writer repeatedly turned to psychotherapists. And he made his chronic depression the subject of research and wrote a book on how to recover from it. But he failed.

Childhood and youth

A Russian prose writer was born in the summer of 1894 in the northern capital in the family of noblemen Mikhail Zoshchenko and Elena Surina. The head of the family is an itinerant artist, whose mosaics still adorn the facade of the museum in St. Petersburg. creative person there was also the writer’s mother: before marriage, Elena Iosifovna appeared on the stage as an actress. And then, when eight children were born one after another, she managed to write stories that the Kopeyka newspaper took to print.

At the age of 8, Misha was taken to the gymnasium. Later, in his autobiography, Zoshchenko said that he did not study well, and at the final exam he wrote an essay on "1", although even then he dreamed of a career as a writer. The Zoshchenko family barely made ends meet. In 1913, after graduating from high school, Mikhail Zoshchenko became a student at the Imperial University, choosing law. But a year later he was expelled - there was nothing to pay for his studies. To a young man had to earn a living. He got a job as a railroad controller. He worked for a year: the First World War broke out.

In his memoirs, Zoshchenko wrote that he did not have a "patriotic mood". Nevertheless, Mikhail distinguished himself by receiving four military orders. He was repeatedly wounded, and after being gassed, he was "written off" to the reserve. But Zoshchenko refused and returned to the front.

Mikhail Zoshchenko in his youth

The revolution of 1917 prevented Zoshchenko from becoming a captain and receiving the Order of St. Vladimir. In 1915, the writer was sent to the reserve. In the summer, Zoshchenko was appointed commandant of the Petrograd post office, but six months later he left his native city and went to Arkhangelsk. Mikhail Zoshchenko refused to leave Russia and go to France.

During his biography, the prose writer changed at least 15 professions. He worked in court, raised rabbits and chickens in the Smolensk province, and worked as a shoemaker. In 1919, Mikhail Zoshchenko volunteered for the Red Army. But in the spring he ended up in the hospital, was demobilized and switched to the service of a telephone operator.

Literature

Mikhail Zoshchenko began to write at the age of 8: first poetry, then short stories. In 1907, when he was 13, he wrote the story "Coat". Childhood impressions and family troubles had a strong influence on him, later reflected in the works of Mikhail Zoshchenko for children: "Galoshes and Ice Cream", "Christmas Tree", "Stupid Story", "Great Travelers".

After the revolution and demobilization, Zoshchenko tried a dozen professions in search of work, which was reflected in his work and enriched his works with interesting details. In 1919, Mikhail Zoshchenko visited a literary studio, established under the publishing house "World Literature" and led by. Korney Ivanovich, who got acquainted with Zoshchenko's humorous works, highly appreciated the writer's talent, but was surprised that "such a sad person" turned out to be a humorist.

In the studio, the writer met Veniamin Kaverin, Vsevolod Ivanov and other colleagues, with whom in the early 1920s he united in a literary group called the Serapion Brothers. "Serapions", as the writers were called in the press, stood up for the liberation of creativity from politics.

The first publications drew attention to Mikhail Zoshchenko. The popularity of the writer in post-revolutionary Russia is growing rapidly. Phrases from his humorous stories become winged. From 1922 to 1946, the prose writer's books were reprinted 100 times, including a 6-volume collected works.

In the mid-1920s, Mikhail Zoshchenko was at the zenith of his fame. The stories "Bath", "Aristocrat", "History of the disease", "Trouble" are full of original humor, are read in one breath and are loved by all segments of society. The writer is asked to read them at meetings in audiences crowded with fans. The comedian's work was highly appreciated, he was delighted with the "correlation of humor and lyricism" in Zoshchenko's stories.

Literary critics after the release of two collections noted that Mikhail Zoshchenko created a new type of hero. This is a poorly educated Soviet person without cultural baggage, reflective and full of desire to catch up with "the rest of humanity." Attempts to "equalize" are funny and clumsy, but laughing at the hero is not evil. Often the prose writer tells the story on behalf of the hero himself, forcing the reader to better understand the motives of his actions. Critics have defined Mikhail Mikhailovich's manner as "fantastic". Korney Chukovsky noticed that the writer introduced a new non-literary speech, which was accepted and loved by readers.

But not everything coming from the pen of a writer is accepted by readers with admiration. Humorous stories and stories by Mikhail Zoshchenko fell in love, but the writer was expected to continue in the same spirit. And in 1929 he published the book Letters to a Writer. This is a kind of sociological study, consisting of dozens of letters to the writer from readers. The book caused bewilderment and indignation among admirers of Zoshchenko's talent, and a negative reaction from the authorities.

Director Vsevolod Meyerhold was forced to remove the play "Dear Comrade" from the repertoire. From childhood, receptive Mikhail Zoshchenko plunged into depression, which was aggravated after a trip along the White Sea Canal. In the 1930s, the authorities organized a journey of writers, hoping that they would reflect the re-education in the Stalinist camps of the “criminal element”, his “reforging” into a “useful” person.

But what he saw at the White Sea Canal had the opposite effect on Mikhail Zoshchenko - it was depressing, and he wrote not at all what was expected of him. In the story "The Story of a Life", which appeared in 1934, he shares his gloomy impressions.

Trying to get rid of a depressive state, Mikhail Zoshchenko composed the story "Returned Youth". This psychological research that aroused interest in the scientific community. Inspired by this reaction, the prose writer continued his literary studies of human relations, publishing the collection of short stories The Blue Book in 1935. But if in the scientific community the essay was met with interest, then in the party press Mikhail Zoshchenko was branded. The writer was banned from publishing writings that went beyond "positive satire on individual shortcomings."

Illustration for "The Blue Book" by Mikhail Zoshchenko

The prose writer, constrained by censorship, concentrated his energies on writing stories for children. They are published in the magazines "Chizh" and "Ezh". Later, the stories were included in the collection Lelya and Minka. Five years later, the second collection of stories for children, called “The Most Important Thing”, saw the light of day.

In the late 1930s, Mikhail Zoshchenko concentrated his efforts on the work on the book, which he considered the main work of his life. He did not stop working on it during the Second World War. The 47-year-old writer was not at the front, although from the very first days of the war he applied to the military registration and enlistment office, volunteering. But the writer did not pass the medical examination - he was recognized as unfit for military service. Zoshchenko joined the fire defense group and, together with his son, was on duty on the roofs of Leningrad houses, protecting them from incendiary shells.

The writer was forcibly evacuated to Alma-Ata, allowing him to take luggage no heavier than 12 kilograms. Zoshchenko took notebooks and manuscripts - preparations for the future "main book", which he came up with a working title - "Keys of Happiness" (later changed to "Before Sunrise"). The weight of the manuscripts is 8 kilograms. The remaining four are personal belongings and clothing.

During the evacuation, the writer worked at the Mosfilm studio, where he wrote scripts for two films: Soldier's Happiness and Fallen Leaves. In the spring of 1943, the writer arrived in Moscow, where he got a job on the editorial board of the humorous magazine Krokodil. The comedy play Canvas Briefcase, written in the evacuation, is successfully staged (200 performances a year) at the Leningrad Drama Theatre.

In the same 1943, the first chapters of the scientific and artistic research "Before Sunrise" were published in the Zvezda magazine. Mikhail Zoshchenko wrote that he had been working towards this work all his life, placing great hopes on the understanding and approval of the book by readers and literary critics.

Zoshchenko's story is a confessional. In it, Mikhail Mikhailovich, based on the works of the physiologist and, tried to scientifically substantiate the victory over depression. In his autobiography, the writer talks about his childhood experiences and traumas, explaining the melancholy in his mature years by what he experienced in childhood. This book is a scientific guide for those who, like Mikhail Zoshchenko, tried to get rid of oppressive mental anguish.

Zvezda was banned from publishing the continuation of the book, and repression followed. In party publications, Mikhail Zoshchenko and the magazines that gave him a platform were smashed to smithereens. The magazine "Leningrad" was closed.

The story was criticized, behind him and, calling the work "a disgusting thing." Critical scolding fell upon Zoshchenko in a flood. The book was called "nonsense", which plays into the hands of the enemies of the USSR. Soon a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Belarus appeared, where the writer was called a "coward" and "a bastard of literature." Mikhail Zoshchenko was accused of not going to the front, although he visited the military registration and enlistment office in the very first days of the war. Repentance was expected from him.

Joseph Stalin and Andrei Zhdanov criticized the books of Mikhail Zoshchenko

The bitter position of the prose writer was aggravated by the reprint in Zvezda children's story"The Adventures of the Monkey". In the story they suddenly saw a satire on the Soviet system. Together with Mikhail Zoshchenko they branded and. In order to survive and not die of hunger, the writer translated the works of Finnish colleagues into Russian. After the death of Generalissimo Mikhail Zoshchenko, he was accepted into the Writers' Union, from which he was expelled in 1946. But at the insistence they accepted him as a translator, and not as a writer.

After a short thaw, a scandal broke out again, the persecution began in the second round. This happened after Zoshchenko and Akhmatova met with English students who asked to see the writers' graves. The British were presented with living writers, wanting to demonstrate the loyalty of the Soviet authorities to the "enemy element".

At a meeting in the Writer's House in May 1954, the disgraced writers were asked about their attitude to the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Anna Andreevna, whose son was imprisoned, replied that she agreed with the decision. Mikhail Zoshchenko said that he did not agree with the insults and did not consider himself either a traitor or an enemy of the people. The persecution in the press began. In 1955 Zoshchenko applied for a pension. But Mikhail Mikhailovich received a notification about the appointment of a personal pension of 1200 rubles only in the summer of 1958, a few days before his death.

Personal life

In the personal life of the writer, too, everything was not easy. In December 1918, Mikhail Zoshchenko met Vera Kerbits-Kerbitskaya. They got married in the summer of 1920, which was tragic for the writer: in January, Zoshchenko's mother died. The only son of Mikhail Zoshchenko - Valery - was born in the spring of 1922 in Leningrad.

In the life of a classic, there were many hobbies and novels, but one of them, the longest, happened to Lydia Chalova, who is called the writer's muse. Mikhail Zoshchenko met his 20-year-old younger woman in 1929. Chalova worked in the fees department of Krasnaya Gazeta. Zoshchenko, who was at the peak of his popularity, was surprised a lot when the girl asked his last name.

Rapprochement occurred when Lida's husband died. The writer supported the young woman. Soon friendship turned into love. In 1946, the novel ended at the initiative of Chalova, but the surviving correspondence speaks of Zoshchenko's sincere love, which remained for Lydia after parting. V last years life of the writer was near his wife Vera. She is buried next to her husband.

Death

The last years the writer spent at the dacha in Sestroretsk. In the spring of 1958, Mikhail Zoshchenko was poisoned by nicotine. Due to poisoning, a spasm of cerebral vessels occurred, the writer did not recognize his relatives and could not speak. Death occurred on July 22 from heart failure.

The authorities did not allow the classic to be buried in the Literary Bridges Necropolis Museum at the Volkovskoye Cemetery, where many Russian writers found their last refuge. Zoshchenko was buried in Sestroretsk at the local cemetery. Eyewitnesses claim that on the face of Mikhail Zoshchenko, gloomy in life, a smile was guessed.

Bibliography

Stories and feuilletons "Raznotyk"
Stories of Nazar Ilyich Mr. Sinebryukhov
nervous people
Sentimental stories
Letters to the writer
Returned youth
Fun Projects (Thirty Happy Ideas)
happy ideas
Immortal Tours by Andre Gosficus
Personal life
blue book
The sixth story of Belkin
Black Prince
Retribution
Lelya and Minka
Stories for children
Stories about Lenin
Before sunrise

The famous Russian Soviet writer, prose writer, playwright M.M. Zoshchenko was born on July 29 (August 10), 1894 (according to other sources - 1895) in St. Petersburg, on the Petersburg side, at house number 4 on Bolshaya Raznochinnaya Street, in the family of an itinerant artist and actress. In the metric book of the Church of the Holy Martyr Tsaritsa Alexandra, he was entered as Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko.

In 1903, the parents sent the boy to the St. Petersburg eighth gymnasium. Here is how he recalled these years: “I studied very badly. And especially badly in Russian - at the exam for the matura I received a unit in Russian composition ... This poor progress is all the more strange to me even now, because then I already wanted to be a writer and wrote for stories and poems. More from rage than from despair, I tried to end my life. " Life is sometimes paradoxical - the future major writer, who began to compose at the age of 9, is the most lagging behind in the Russian language! Fate kept him, not allowing him to commit suicide, just as before, when he was a six-year-old boy, being at a dacha near Shlisselburg, he almost drowned in the Neva.

Childhood impressions, including those of complex relationships between parents, were subsequently reflected in Zoshchenko's stories for children ("Galoshes and Ice Cream", "Yolka", "Grandma's Gift", "Don't Lie", etc.). The first literary experiences relate to childhood. In one of his notebooks, he noted that in 1902-1906 he already tried to write poetry, and in 1907 he wrote the story "Coat".

In 1913, Mikhail graduated from a gymnasium in St. Petersburg and entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. By this time, his first surviving stories - "Vanity" (1914) and "Two-kopeck piece" (1914) belong. In early 1914, Mikhail Zoshchenko was expelled from the university due to non-payment of tuition. The young man had to go to work. He barely got a job as a controller on the Caucasian railway, as in August 1914 the world war began. Zoshchenko decides to go to military service. Already on September 29, 1914, he became a cadet with the rights of a volunteer of the first category at an accelerated four-month course at the Pavlovsk Military School, and in February 1915, after completing the course, he was promoted to ensign and sent to the disposal of the chief of staff of the Kiev military district. After some time, M. Zoshchenko was transferred to the 106th infantry reserve battalion, was appointed commander of the 6th marching company and went to the army to staff the 16th Mingrelian Grenadier Regiment, to which he was seconded until December 1915. Zoshchenko himself explained his departure for the war as follows: "As far as I remember, I did not have a patriotic mood - I simply could not sit in one place."

On December 22, 1915, M. Zoshchenko was promoted to second lieutenant, and on July 9, 1916, to lieutenant. On the night of July 20, 1916, the detachment came under a gas attack by the Germans, Zoshchenko ended up in a field hospital. After treatment, he was declared sick of the 1st category, but on October 9 he returned to duty. On November 10, 1916, Lieutenant Zoshchenko was promoted to staff captain and appointed company commander. For personal courage, M. Zoshchenko during the First World War was awarded four orders - St. Stanislav 3rd degree with swords and a bow (November 17, 1915), St. Anne 4th degree with the inscription "For Courage" (February 11, 1916 ), St. Stanislaus 2nd class with swords (September 13, 1916) and St. Anna 3rd class with swords and a bow (November 9, 1916). Zoshchenko was also presented to the St. George Cross, but did not have time to receive it.

He participated in many battles and was wounded. He commanded a battalion, but even during the war years he did not stop literary activity. He tried himself in short stories, in the epistolary and satirical genres (composed letters to fictitious addressees and epigrams to fellow soldiers). At the beginning of 1917, due to a heart disease that arose after gas poisoning, M.M. Zoshchenko was demobilized and returned to Petrograd. Soon after, he meets his future wife, V.V. Kerbits-Kerbitskaya.

After the February Revolution, Zoshchenko was appointed commandant of the Main Post Office and Telegraph of the city of Petrograd. However, he soon left this position and left for Arkhangelsk, where he served as adjutant of the Arkhangelsk squad and secretary of the regimental court. He combines public service with literary experiments: writing at that time had not yet become his main occupation. Under the influence of fashionable writers in the metropolitan youth environment - Artsybashev, Verbitskaya, Al. Kamensky - he writes the stories "Actress", "Petty bourgeois", "Neighbour".

After the October Revolution, the former military officer of the tsarist army, M. Zoshchenko, went over to the side of the Soviet government. In 1918, despite his illness, he again went to the front: he signed up as a volunteer in the Red Army and fought on the fronts until 1919. civil war. At first he served in the border troops in Kronstadt, and then transferred to the active army and until the spring of 1919 he was an adjutant at the front of the 1st Exemplary Regiment of the Rural Poor. Zoshchenko takes part in the battles near Narva and Yamburg against the detachments of Bulak-Balakhovich. However, after a heart attack in April 1919, he had to demobilize and return to Petrograd.

Zoshchenko earned his living by various professions: a shoemaker, a carpenter, a carpenter, an actor, an instructor in rabbit breeding and chicken breeding in the Smolensk province, he served in the police, was a court secretary, and then began serving as an investigator in Criminal Supervision. Zoshchenko himself wrote later that he "changed ten or twelve professions before he got to his present profession." In the humorous "Orders on the railway police and criminal supervision of the Ligovo station" and other unpublished works written at that time, the style of the future satirist is already felt.

In 1919, Zoshchenko studied at the creative Studio, organized by the publishing house "World Literature". Led by K.I. Chukovsky, who highly appreciated the work of Zoshchenko. Recalling his stories and parodies, written during the period of studio studies, Chukovsky wrote: "It was strange to see that such a sad person was endowed with this wondrous ability to force his neighbors to laugh." In addition to prose, while studying, Zoshchenko wrote articles about the work of V. Mayakovsky, N. Teffi and others. In the Studio, he met writers V. Kaverin, Vs. Ivanov, L. Lunts, K. Fedin, E. Polonskaya and others. , which in 1921 united in the literary group "Serapion Brothers", who advocated the freedom of creativity from political guardianship. Together with Slonimsky, he was part of the so-called "central" faction, which held the conviction that "the current prose is no good" and that one must learn from the old forgotten Russian tradition - Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov. creative communication contributed to the life of Zoshchenko and other "serapions" in the famous Petrograd House of Arts, described by O. Forsh in the novel "Crazy Ship".

In January 1920, the writer is experiencing the death of his mother. In the same year, in July, he marries V.V. Kerbits-Kerbitskaya and moves to her on B. Zelenin Street. Starting in 1920, when Zoshchenko entered the Petrograd military port as a clerk, he constantly began to engage in literary activities. In 1920-1921, Zoshchenko wrote the first stories of those that were subsequently published: "Love", "War", "Old Woman Wrangel", "Female Fish".

In May 1921, the son Valery was born in the Zoshchenko family, and in August 1922 the first almanac "Serapion Brothers" was published by the Alkonost publishing house, where the story of Mikhail Zoshchenko was published. First independent edition young writer was the book "Stories of Nazar Ilyich, Mr. Sinebryukhov", published in 2000 copies by the publishing house "Erato". This event marked Zoshchenko's transition to professional literary activity. The very first publication made him famous, phrases from his stories became popular expressions: “Why are you disturbing the mess?”, “Second lieutenant is nothing to himself, but a bastard,” etc. In the 1920s and 1930s, Zoshchenko enjoyed incredible popularity - from 1922 to In 1946, his books went through about 100 editions, including a collected work in 6 volumes (1928-1932). By the mid-1920s, Zoshchenko had become one of the most popular Soviet writers. His stories "Bath", "Aristocrat", "History of the disease" and others, which he himself often read to numerous audiences, were known and loved in all sectors of society. A.M. Gorky noted: “I don’t know such a ratio of irony and lyricism in anyone’s literature.”

M. Gorky was on friendly terms with the "serapions", followed the work of each of them. Here is another review of his: "Excellently recorded by Zoshchenko. His latest works are the best that the Serapions had. A subtle writer. A wonderful humorist." M. Gorky begins to patronize the talented writer and in every possible way assists him in the release of his works. With the mediation of a proletarian writer in 1923, Zoshchenko's story "Victoria Kazimirovna" was published in the Belgian magazine "Le disque vert" in French. This story was the first translation of Soviet prose published in Western Europe!

In the collections Humorous Stories (1923), Dear Citizens (1926) and others, Zoshchenko created a new type of hero for Russian literature - a Soviet person who has not received an education, does not have cultural baggage, but strives to become a full participant in life, to equal "the rest of mankind." Zoshchenko created a comic image of a philistine hero with poor morals and a primitive view of the environment. The fact that the story was told on behalf of the narrator gave literary critics reason to define Zoshchenko's creative style as "skazovogo". Academician V.V. Vinogradov in the study "Zoshchenko's Language" analyzed in detail the writer's narrative techniques, noted the artistic transformation of various speech layers in his lexicon. Chukovsky noted that Zoshchenko introduced into literature "a new, not yet fully formed, but victoriously spread throughout the country, non-literary speech and began to freely use it as his own speech." Many of his outstanding contemporaries - A. Tolstoy, Y. Olesha, S. Marshak, Y. Tynyanov and others - highly appreciated the work of Zoshchenko.

In 1927, a large group of writers, united by the Krug publishing house, creates a collective declaration in which they highlight their literary and aesthetic position. M. Zoshchenko is among the signatories. At this time, he was published in periodicals (mainly in the satirical magazines Begemot, Smekhach, Eccentric, Inspector General, Fly Agaric, etc.). But not everything goes smoothly. In June 1927, an issue of the Begemot magazine was confiscated because of M. Zoshchenko's "politically harmful" story "An Unpleasant Story". There is a gradual liquidation of this kind of publications, and in 1930 the last satirical magazine "Inspector" was closed in Leningrad. But Zoshchenko does not despair. He continues to work. In the same year, he and a team of writers were sent to the Baltic Shipyard. There he writes for the wall and shop newspapers, and is also published in the factory circulation "Baltiets".

In 1929, which received Soviet history called "the year of the great turning point", Zoshchenko published the book "Letters to the Writer" - a kind of sociological study. It was made up of several dozen letters from the reader's mail, which the writer received, and his comments on them. In the preface to the book, Zoshchenko wrote that he wanted "to show true and undisguised life, genuine living people with their desires, taste, thoughts." The book caused bewilderment among many readers, who expected only regular funny stories from Zoshchenko. After its release, director V. Meyerhold was forbidden to stage Zoshchenko's play "Dear Comrade" (1930).

Soviet reality could not but affect the emotional state of the receptive, from childhood prone to depression, writer. A trip along the White Sea Canal, organized in the 1930s for propaganda purposes for a large group of Soviet writers, made a depressing impression on him. No less difficult was the need for Zoshchenko to write after this trip that criminals were supposedly being re-educated in Stalin's camps ("History of a Life", 1934). Since 1932, the writer begins to collaborate with the magazine "Crocodile"; studies literature on physiology, psychoanalysis, medicine. An attempt to get rid of the oppressed state, to correct his own painful psyche was a kind of psychological study - the story "Returned Youth" (1933). The story evoked an interested reaction in the scientific community, unexpected for the writer: the book, devoted to the problems of psychology, mental health, was discussed at numerous academic meetings, was reviewed in scientific publications; Academician I.Pavlov began to invite Zoshchenko to his famous Wednesdays.

By this time Zoshchenko's works were already well known in the West. But this fame had a downside: in 1933 in Germany, his books were subjected to a public auto-da-fé in accordance with Hitler's "black list". In the USSR, then his comedy " Cultural heritage". In 1934, one of Zoshchenko's most famous books, The Blue Book, began to be published, the idea of \u200b\u200bwhich was suggested by M. Gorky: "to depict and embroider something like a humorous history of culture with colorful beads." In it, the author plays with well-known literary plots ("Poor Lisa", "The Sufferings of Young Werther", "Deceit and Love", etc.). Zoshchenko considered the "Blue Book" a novel in terms of its internal content, defined it as " a brief history human relations" and wrote that she "moves not as a short story, but philosophical idea that makes it." Stories about the present were interspersed in this work with stories set in the past - in different periods of history. Both the present and the past were given in the perception of the typical hero Zoshchenko, who was not burdened with cultural baggage and understood history as a set of everyday episodes.

After the publication of the "Blue Book", which caused devastating reviews in party publications, Zoshchenko was actually forbidden to print works that go beyond "positive satire on individual shortcomings." Despite his high writing activity (custom feuilletons for the press, plays, film scripts, etc.), Zoshchenko's true talent manifested itself only in stories for children, which he wrote for the Chizh and Ezh magazines. Zoshchenko works in Leningrad newspapers, on the radio, in the magazine "Crocodile". In addition to plays, short stories and novels, Zoshchenko continues to write feuilletons, historical novels ("The Black Prince", "Retribution", "Kerensky", "Taras Shevchenko", etc.), stories for children ("Christmas Tree", "Grandmother's Gift", "Smart Animals", etc.). From August 17 to September 1, 1934, the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers was held, M. Zoshchenko was elected a member of the board.

At first glance, the creative fate of the writer was going well. Despite the difficulties, the 1920s and 1930s were undoubtedly the best years in Zoshchenko's life and work. There was enough money, books came out constantly. Vera Vladimirovna, his wife, did not work. They lived in a large good apartment, and all the acquaintances noted: in the rooms of Vera Vladimirovna expensive furniture, antiques, in Mikhail Mikhailovich - ascetic simplicity. Generally they family life- the subject is not easy. You can’t call Zoshchenko an ideal husband - endless novels, departures for other women. Perhaps that is why he occasionally resorted to the services of psychotherapists. Literary attacks on Zoshchenko did not stop either. Even after February 17, 1939, when he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, his works are constantly being attacked by official criticism.

In the late 1930s, the writer worked on a new book, which he considered the main one in his life. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Mikhail Zoshchenko wrote an application with a request to enroll in the Red Army, but was refused as unfit for military service for health reasons. He has to engage in anti-fascist activities outside the battlefield: he writes anti-war feuilletons for newspapers and the Radio Committee. In October 1941, the writer was evacuated to Alma-Ata, and in November he was hired as an employee of the script department of the Mosfilm film studio. In the spring of 1943, Zoshchenko was summoned from evacuation to Moscow, where he was offered the position of editor-in-chief of Krokodil, which he refused. However, he is included in the editorial board of the journal. Everything looks good on the outside. But the clouds over Zoshchenko's head continue to thicken. The story "Before Sunrise" was subjected to the most severe criticism. In 1943, the initial chapters of this story about the subconscious were published in the October magazine. Zoshchenko studied cases from life that gave impetus to a severe mental illness, from which doctors could not save him. The modern scientific world notes that in this book the writer anticipated many discoveries of the science of the unconscious for decades. The magazine publication caused such a scandal, such a flurry of critical abuse fell upon the writer that the printing of Before Sunrise was interrupted. Zoshchenko sent a letter to Stalin, asking him to familiarize himself with the book "or give an order to check it in more detail than is done by the critics." The answer was another stream of abuse in the press, the book was called "nonsense, needed only by the enemies of our country" (magazine "Bolshevik").

In early December 1943, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted two resolutions in a row - "On increasing the responsibility of the secretaries of literary and artistic journals" and "On control over literary and artistic journals", where the story "Before Sunrise" was declared "a politically harmful and anti-artistic work ". At an extended meeting of the SSP, A. Fadeev, L. Kirpotin, S. Marshak, L. Sobolev, V. Shklovsky and others oppose Zoshchenko. He is supported by D. Shostakovich, M. Slonimsky, A. Mariengof, A. Raikin, A. Vertinsky, B. Babochkin, V. Gorbatov, A. Kruchenykh. In the end, the writer is removed from the editorial board of the magazine, deprived of food rations, evicted from the Moscow Hotel.

In 1944-1946, Zoshchenko worked a lot for theaters. Two of his comedies were staged in the Leningrad drama theater, one of which - "Canvas Briefcase" - withstood 200 performances per year. And yet, the persecution continued. At the expanded plenum of the SSP, N.S. Tikhonov attacks the story "Before Sunrise", after which, in a personal conversation with Mikhail Mikhailovich, he justifies himself by saying that he was "ordered" to do this. Now Zoshchenko is almost never printed, however, he is still awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945", and in 1946 he was appointed to the editorial board of the Zvezda magazine. Watching these collisions of the fate of a writer, one involuntarily thinks that under the conditions of totalitarianism a person easily becomes a toy in the hands of those in power, who are free to caress him or destroy him. Nothing depends on the person himself in such a world. The infamous resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of August 14, 1946 "On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad" became the apotheosis, after which the writer was expelled from the Writers' Union and deprived of a food "working" card. The reason for the attacks this time was completely insignificant - the publication of the children's story "The Adventures of a Monkey" (1945), in which the authorities saw a hint that monkeys live better than people in the Soviet country.

After the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On the magazines" Zvezda "and" Leningrad "" was issued, the party leader of Leningrad A. Zhdanov recalled in his report the book "Before Sunrise", calling it "a disgusting thing." In a speech by the secretary of the all-powerful Central Committee, Zhdanov, Zoshchenko was called a "vulgar," "philistine" who should be "expelled from Soviet literature." The decree of 1946, with the rudeness inherent in Soviet ideology, "criticized" M. Zoshchenko and A. Akhmatova, led to their public harassment and a ban on the publication of their works. In August 1946, after the Decree, Zoshchenko was expelled from the Writers' Union.

At a writers' meeting, Zoshchenko said that the honor of an officer and a writer does not allow him to accept the fact that in the resolution of the Central Committee he is called a "coward" and "a bastard of literature." Following this decision, all publishing houses, magazines and theaters terminate the agreements concluded earlier, demanding the return of the advance payments issued. A period of distress is coming. The apartment was exchanged for a smaller one, Vera Vladimirovna was selling the old furniture, "luxury items". Anatoly Mariengof recalled that he somehow caught Mikhail Mikhailovich with scissors: he contracted to cut insoles for a shoe artel. In the end, the ration card is returned, and he even manages to publish several stories and feuilletons. But basically, you have to earn a living by translation work. “For matches” and “Risen from the dead” by M. Lassila, “From Karelia to the Carpathians” are published in Russian. A. Timonen, "The Tale of the Collective Farm Carpenter Sago" by M. Tsagaraev, where the name of the translator is missing.

Today, historians have studied the background of the events that led in 1946 to the release of the decree on "Zvezda" and "Leningrad". The "Malenkovskaya" group in the Central Committee intrigued against the "Zhdanovskaya" one, decided to show that in Leningrad, Zhdanov's patrimony, there was an ideological disorder. Zoshchenko and Akhmatova turned out to be an occasion for an undercover fight, that is, they came under attack quite by accident. Now Zhdanov had to demonstrate his firmness. At the same time, he really did not like Zoshchenko. However, there was no command to "beat to death". Zoshchenko also understood this. In a conversation with the writer Yuri Nagibin, speaking about the attitude of the authorities towards himself, Zoshchenko said: “Torturing the victim is much more interesting than cracking down on her. Stalin hated me and was waiting for an opportunity to get rid of it. Monkey was printed before, no one paid attention to it did not pay. But then my hour came. It could not have been "The Monkey", but "A Christmas tree was born in the forest" - it did not play any role. The ax hung over me from the pre-war period, when I published the story "Sentry and Lenin". But Stalin I was distracted by the war, and when he got a little free, they took me up." According to Zoshchenko, the leader was offended by the writer because the story featured a certain "man with a mustache" who shouted at the sentry that he would not let Lenin through without a pass to Smolny. This character was tactless, rude and impatient, Lenin scolded him like a boy. "Stalin recognized himself - or he was advised - and did not forgive me for this."

The saddest consequence of this ideological campaign was the exacerbation of mental illness, which did not allow the writer to work fully. In the period from 1946 to 1953, the writer was mainly engaged in translation activities - without the right to sign translated works, and also worked as a shoemaker. An interesting episode occurred in 1950, when Mikhail Zoshchenko had to sew up the pants of another distressed writer, Yuri Olesha, with his own hand (and very high quality). And when the "general of literature" Fadeev found out about this fact, Yu. Olesha said to him: "Do you think that an important event in the current moment of our literature is that you came to Leningrad? You are mistaken! The important thing is that the writer Zoshchenko mended the trousers of the writer Olesha.

And in the future, Zoshchenko refused to come out with the expected repentance from him and the recognition of "mistakes." He manages to return to the Writers' Union only after the death of I. Stalin: on June 23, 1953, he is not restored (!), but again accepted into this association. But this is not the end. Not for long this time Mikhail Mikhailovich managed to stay a member of the Writers' Union. The fateful event occurred on May 5, 1954.

On this day, he and Akhmatova were invited to the Writer's House for a meeting with a group of students from England. And there the writer openly declared his disagreement with the accusations against him, again tried to state his attitude to the 1946 decree, after which a new stage of persecution begins. May 28 "Leningradskaya Pravda" publishes a report on the party meeting in the Leningrad branch of the SP, where Zoshchenko is sharply criticized. On June 15, Zoshchenko makes a return speech, after which he is attacked in the press and on the radio. All this could not but affect the already undermined health of the disgraced writer. The last straw was an article in Izvestiya on September 7, 1954, "Facts expose slander." The article did not say a word about Zoshchenko and Akhmatova, it was a routine publication of the London staff correspondent that some British travel to the USSR as tourists, but do not notice real achievements. But Zoshchenko already perceived everything too tragically. After all, even for that interview with English students on May 5, a special car was sent for him, and the entire Leningrad literary authorities supervised the conversation. Even without this interview, there were devastating articles in Leningradskaya Pravda, and meetings at the Writers' Union, and personal attacks in offices, and threats to forever ban publication ...

Zoshchenko had to deal with a mental crisis before, but he always found the strength to get out of it. But in 1954 there was a scrapping. The old Zoshchenko is over. The name of the writer ceased to be mentioned anywhere. This oblivion lasted for about two months. However, already in November, Mikhail Mikhailovich was offered cooperation by the magazines Krokodil, Ogonyok and Leningradsky Almanac. A group of writers comes to his defense: K. Chukovsky, Vs. Ivanov, V. Kaverin, N. Tikhonov. After reaching retirement age and until his death (from 1954 to 1958), Zoshchenko was denied a pension. In December 1957, after a long break, he manages to publish the book Selected Stories and Novels 1923-1956, but M. Zoshchenko's physical and mental condition is deteriorating. By the spring of 1958, there was a sharp decline in mental and physical strength, the writer was weakening, losing interest in life ...

The last years of M.M. Zoshchenko lived in a dacha in Sestroretsk. He was constantly in a state of severe mental breakdown, tormented by many years of persecution. He was seized by apathy and isolation. Seeing acquaintances, he crossed to the other side of the street: "So that you do not have to say hello to me." One of the brightest Russian writers of the 20th century died in Leningrad on July 22, 1958 at 0:45. But even after his death, his body fell into disgrace: no permission was given for burial on the Literary bridges of the Volkovskoye cemetery in Leningrad. The very parting with him is the plot of Zoshchenko's story, bitter and funny at the same time: next to the sincere pain of those who loved the deceased, there are squabbles of officials at the coffin (is he still disgraced or already forgiven?). What is worth only the phrase of one of them at the funeral: "Goodbye, Comrade Zoshchenko!".

The ashes of the writer rest in the cemetery in Sestroretsk. His relatives were also buried nearby - his wife Vera Vladimirovna (1898-1981), son Valery Mikhailovich (1921-1986), grandson Mikhail Valeryevich (1943-1996). Monument at the grave of M.M. Zoshchenko was built according to the design of the sculptor Viktor Onezhko and opened in 1995.

In the magazine "Star" for Lately, along with significant and successful works of Soviet writers, many unprincipled, ideologically harmful works appeared.

Zvezda's gross mistake is to provide a literary platform for the writer Zoshchenko, whose works are alien to Soviet literature. The editors of Zvezda know that Zoshchenko has long specialized in writing empty, meaningless and vulgar things, in preaching rotten lack of ideas, vulgarity and apoliticality, calculated to disorient our youth and poison their consciousness. The last of Zoshchenko's published stories, Adventures of a Monkey, is a vulgar libel on Soviet life and Soviet people. Zoshchenko portrays the Soviet order and the Soviet people in an ugly caricature, slanderously representing the Soviet people as primitive, uncultured, stupid, with philistine tastes and mores. Zoshchenko's maliciously hooligan portrayal of our reality is accompanied by anti-Soviet attacks. Leaving the pages of Zvezda to such vulgar and scum of literature as Zoshchenko is all the more unacceptable since the editors of Zvezda are well aware of Zoshchenko's physiognomy and his unworthy behavior during the war, when Zoshchenko, without helping the Soviet people in any way in their struggle against the German invaders, wrote such a disgusting thing as Before Sunrise, an assessment of which, like the assessment of Zoshchenko's entire literary "creativity", was given on the pages of the Bolshevik magazine ...