There was Chukovsky roots. Jewish roots of Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky

Read fairy tales by Korney Chukovsky online- it means to plunge into a huge magical world created for children by an unusually talented author who subtly feels children's nature. It is surprising that Korney Chukovsky wrote about 25 fairy tales in total - but there is hardly at least one adult in the entire vast post-Soviet space who has not known since childhood the good-natured and courageous doctor from the fairy tale "Aibolit" or the dirty Fedora from the story "Fedorino grief".

Characters invented Korney Chukovsky– charismatic, bright, original and memorable. They teach kids kindness, resourcefulness and justice. A brave kid - a midget from the fairy tale "The Adventures of Bibigon", a strict but fair Moidodyr, so different, but all in their own way interesting animals and insects from the stories "Cockroach", "Crocodile" and "Fly-Tsokotuha" - these are just a small part of the beautiful images created for children by the genius of Korney Chukovsky, which will be interesting to read online on our website. Even the negative characters of the author are not without charm. Reading about their misdeeds is not scary at all! And, more importantly for children, not a single insidious villain in the end goes unpunished.

At what age can you read the fairy tales of Korney Chukovsky to children?

Even the smallest children listen to these tales with genuine pleasure, because everything in them is clear and understandable. To create his good stories, the author uses only simple vocabulary and does not try to create images that are difficult for children. In view of the rhythmic nature of fairy tales, it is recommended to read them even for pregnant women, because even then the child learns to perceive the world around him through sound vibrations.

In addition to the love of literature, in the creative life Korney Chukovsky there was another great hobby to which this most talented person devoted a lot of time. We are talking about the study of the child's psyche and the process of children learning to speak. The author not only described his observations in the book "From Two to Five", but also fruitfully used the results of his scientific work in writing fairy tales. That is why the poetic form of his works is very popular with children and is easily perceived by them.

Chukovsky's fairy tale stories will help in the development of children's memory, because once you read a work to your child several times, he will begin to quote entire passages on his own. Read Chukovsky's fairy tales online- a real pleasure, because it is so nice to see the interested eyes of the little ones completely immersed in the fabulous ups and downs.

Fate and human psychology are sometimes difficult to explain. An example of this is the life of the outstanding Russian writer Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky (Nikolai Vasilievich Korneichukov). He was born in 1882 in St. Petersburg, died in 1969 in Kuntsevo near Moscow, having lived a long, but far from cloudless life, although he was both a famous children's writer and a major literary critic; his services to Russian culture, in the end, were appreciated at home (Doctor of Philology, laureate of the Lenin Prize) and abroad (Honorary Doctor of Oxford University). This is the outer side of his life.

But it was also internal, hidden. The son of a Ukrainian peasant woman Ekaterina Osipovna Korneichukova and ... (?). In the documents, Chukovsky each time indicated different patronymics (Stepanovich, Anuilovich, Vasilyevich, N.E. Korneychukov). According to the metric, he was Nikolai Korneichukov, i.e. illegitimate. However, he had a sister, Maria Korneichukova, who was born in 1879. The researchers managed to establish that in those documents of Mary, where there is a patronymic, she is named Manuilovna, or Emmanuilovna. It is believed that the father of Korney Chukovsky is the Hereditary Honorary Citizen of Odessa Emmanuil Solomonovich Leve (i) nson, born in 1851, the son of the owner of printing houses located in several cities. The father by all means prevented the "unequal marriage" of his son with a simple peasant woman and achieved his goal.

The Jewish origin of Father Chukovsky is almost beyond doubt. Here is what M. Beiser wrote in 1985 in the samizdat Leningrad Jewish Almanac. The author (who lived in Israel in 1998) spoke with Klara Izrailevna Lozovskaya (who emigrated to the United States), who worked as Chukovsky's secretary. She spoke about Emmanuil Levinson, the son of the owner of printing houses in St. Petersburg, Odessa and Baku. His marriage to the mother of Marusya and Kolya was not formally registered, since for this the father of the children had to be baptized, which was impossible. The connection broke up ... Nina Berberova also testifies to the Jewish origin of Korney Chukovsky's father in the book "Iron Woman". The writer himself did not speak on this topic. “He, as he was, was created by his abandonment,” Lidia Chukovskaya wrote about her father. There is only one reliable source - his "Diary", to which he trusted the most intimate.

Here is what Korney Ivanovich himself writes in the “Diary”: “I, as an illegitimate child, not even having a nationality (who am I? Jew? Russian? Ukrainian?) - was the most incomplete, difficult person on earth ... It seemed to me ... that I am the only one - illegal, that everyone is whispering behind my back, and that when I show someone (janitor, porter) my documents, everyone internally starts to spit on me ... When the children talked about their fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, I he only blushed, hesitated, lied, confused ... It was especially painful for me at the age of 16-17, when young people begin to be called a patronymic name instead of a simple name. I remember how clownishly I asked even at the first meeting - already with a mustache - “just call me Kolya”, “and I'm Kolya”, etc. It seemed like a joke, but it was a pain. And from here the habit of interfering with pain, buffoonery and lies was started - never showing yourself to people - from here, everything else went from here.

“... I never had such a luxury as a father, or at least a grandfather,” Chukovsky wrote bitterly. They, of course, existed (just like the grandmother), but they all unanimously abandoned the boy and his sister. Kolya knew his father. After the death of her father, Lydia Chukovskaya wrote about this in the book “Memories of Childhood”. The family then lived in the Finnish town of Kuokkala, and one day, the already well-known writer Korney Chukovsky unexpectedly brought the grandfather of his children to the house. It was promised that he would stay for several days, but his son unexpectedly and quickly kicked him out. The man was never spoken of again in the house. Little Lida remembered how one day, her mother suddenly called the children and said sternly: “Remember, children, you can’t ask dad about his dad, your grandfather. Never ask anything." Korney Ivanovich was forever offended for his mother, but she loved the father of her children all her life - a portrait of a bearded man always hung in their house.

Chukovsky does not cover his national origin. And only in the "Diary" does he reveal his soul. It is all the more offensive that they were published with many cuts (the editor of the Diary is his granddaughter Elena Tsezarevna Chukovskaya).

Only a few passages can indirectly judge his attitude to the Jewish question. And here there is an inexplicable paradox: a person who has had a hard time with his "bastardism", the culprit of which was his father - a Jew, reveals a clear attraction to the Jews. Back in 1912, he wrote in his diary: “I was at Rozanov’s. The impression is nasty ... He complained that the Jews were eating his children in the gymnasium. The bill does not make it possible to find out the topic of the conversation, although presumably we are talking about Rozanov's anti-Semitism (Rozanov did not hide his views on this issue). And here is what he writes about his secretaries K. Lozovskaya and V. Glotser: praising them for their sensitivity, selflessness, and innocence, he explains these qualities of theirs by the fact that "both of them - Jews - people most predisposed to disinterestedness." After reading the autobiography of Yu.N. Tynyanov, Chukovsky wrote: “Nowhere in the book does it say that Yuri Nikolayevich was a Jew. Meanwhile, the subtlest intelligence that reigns in his "Vazir Mukhtar" is most often characteristic of the Jewish mind.

Half a century after writing about Rozanov, in 1962, Chukovsky writes: “... Sergei Obraztsov was there and said that the Literature and Life newspaper was being closed due to a lack of subscribers (there is no demand for the Black Hundreds), and instead of it, Literaturnaya Russia". The head of the Union of Writers of the RSFSR, Leonid Sobolev, selects employees for the “LR”, and, of course, strives to retain as many employees of the “LZh” as possible in order to again pursue the anti-Semite and, in general, the Black Hundred line. But for the appearance of renewal, they decided to invite Obraztsov and Shklovsky. Obraztsov came to the Board when Shchipachev and Sobolev were there, and said: “I am ready to enter the new edition if not a single Markov remains there, and if an anti-Semitic odor appears there, I will beat anyone involved in this in the face” . Obraztsov authorized me to go to Shchipachev and say that he is not part of the editorial office of LR ... ".

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In early 1963, on the pages of Izvestia, a controversy arose between the anti-Semitic critic V. Yermilov and the writer I. Ehrenburg about the book of memoirs “People, Years, Life”. On February 17, Chukovsky wrote: “Paustovsky was there yesterday: “Did you read Izvestia - about Yermishka?” It turns out that there is a whole strip of letters where Yermilov is greeted by a dark mass of readers who hate Ehrenburg because he is a Jew, an intellectual, a Westerner ... ". Resting in 1964 in Barvikha, he writes: “I have the impression that some drunken person burped in my face. No, it's too soft. A certain Sergei Sergeevich Tsitovich appeared from Minsk and declared, with a wink, that Pervukhin and Voroshilov had Jewish wives, that Marshak (as a Jew) had no sense of homeland, that Engels left a will in which he allegedly wrote that socialism would perish if he Jews will join that the real name of Averchenko is Lifshits, that Marshak was a Zionist in his youth, that A.F. Koni is actually Kohn, etc.” The quotation could be continued, however, the above notes are enough to understand Chukovsky's worldview: his position is not only the position of an advanced Russian intellectual - anti-Semitism is perceived by him painfully, as a personal insult.

I found another confirmation of the Jewish origin of Korney Chukovsky's father in the essay by S. Novikov "Rokhlin". Describing the life of his older friend, the outstanding Soviet mathematician Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin, the author writes: “Two years before his death, he told me the following. His maternal grandfather was a wealthy Odessa Jew Levinson. The maid - the girl Korneichuk - gave birth to a male baby from him, to whom, with the help of the police (for money), a purely Russian Orthodox passport was made ... From myself, I note that Korney received an education, probably with Levinson's money ... Rokhlin's mother - the legitimate daughter of Levinson - received a medical education in France. She was the head of the sanitary inspectorate in Baku, where she was killed in 1923... Her father was shot in the late 1930s. Then Rokhlin, being a 16-year-old boy in Moscow, experienced great difficulties with entering the university. He tried to turn to Korney for help, but he did not accept him. Apparently, at that time, Korney was madly afraid of Stalin (Rokhlin is right, but he connects this with the "Cockroach", not suspecting that the Great Terror entered the Chukovsky family at that time - V.O.) ... After Stalin's death , - as Rokhlin told me, - Korney was looking for contact with him, already a well-known professor. But Rokhlin refused out of pride. One physicist, Misha Marinov... was in good contact with Lydia Chukovskaya, Korney's daughter. She told him about this relationship with Rokhlin, as Misha told me when I told this story in society shortly after the death of Vladimir Abramovich. Rokhlin's son Vladimir Vladimirovich became an outstanding applied mathematician and now lives in America.

These are the facts confirming that Korney Ivanovich was half Jewish. But that wasn't what worried him. He could not forgive his father for what he did: he deceived the woman who loved him all his life and doomed his two children to fatherlessness. After the family drama that he experienced in childhood, it could well have happened that he would have become a anti-Semite: if only because of his love for his mother, if only in revenge for his crippled childhood. This did not happen: the opposite happened - he was drawn to the Jews.

It is difficult and, at first glance, impossible to understand and explain the logic of what happened. The article offers one of the options for what happened. It is known that Kolya Korneichukov studied at the same gymnasium with Vladimir (Zeev) Zhabotinsky, a future brilliant journalist and one of the most prominent representatives of the Zionist movement. The relationship between them was friendly: they were even expelled from the gymnasium together - for writing a sharp pamphlet on the director. There is little information about the further relationship of these people (for obvious reasons). But the fact that Chukovsky chose Zhabotinsky as a guarantor when registering his marriage speaks volumes - guarantors are not random people. In the "Diary" the name of Zhabotinsky appears only in 1964:

"Vlad. Jabotinsky (later a Zionist) said of me in 1902:

Chukovsky Roots

vaunted talent

2 times longer

Telephone pole.

Only such a joke could Korney Ivanovich entrust to paper at that time. From correspondence with a resident of Jerusalem, Rachel Pavlovna Margolina (1965), it turns out that all this time he kept the manuscripts of V. Zhabotinsky as a treasure. Think about the meaning of this fact and you will understand that it was a feat and that the personality of Zhabotinsky was sacred to him. To show that just such a person could bring Kolya out of a state of mental depression, let me quote an excerpt from his letter to R.P. Margolina: “... He introduced me to literature... From the whole personality of Vladimir Evgenievich there was some kind of spiritual radiation. There was something from Pushkin's Mozart in him, and, perhaps, from Pushkin himself ... Everything in him delighted me: his voice, and his laughter, and his thick black hair hanging in a forelock over his high forehead, and his wide fluffy eyebrows, and African lips, and a chin protruding forward ... Now it will seem strange, but our main conversations then were about aesthetics. V.E. wrote a lot of poetry then - and I, who lived in an unintelligent environment, saw for the first time that people can talk excitedly about rhythm, about assonances, about rhymes ... He seemed to me radiant, cheerful, I was proud of his friendship and was sure that before him a wide literary road. But then a pogrom broke out in Chisinau. Volodya Zhabotinsky has completely changed. He began to study his native language, broke with his former environment, and soon ceased to participate in the general press. Before I looked at him from the bottom up: he was the most educated, the most talented of my acquaintances, but now I became attached to him even more ... ”.

Chukovsky acknowledges the enormous influence that Zhabotinsky's personality had on the formation of his worldview. Undoubtedly, V.E. managed to distract Korney Ivanovich from "self-criticism" in relation to illegitimacy and convince him of his talent. "He introduced me to literature...". The publicistic debut of the nineteen-year-old Chukovsky took place in the newspaper Odessa News, where he was brought by Zhabotinsky, who developed in him a love for the language and discerned the talent of a critic. The young journalist's first article was "On the Ever-Young Question", dedicated to the controversy about the tasks of art between symbolists and supporters of utilitarian art. The author tried to find a third way that would reconcile beauty and usefulness. It is unlikely that this article could get on the pages of a popular newspaper - it was too different from everything that was printed there about art, if it were not for the assistance of the "golden pen" (as Vladimir Zhabotinsky was called in Odessa). He greatly appreciated the philosophical ideas and style of the early Chukovsky. He can rightly be called the "godfather" of a young journalist, which Korney Ivanovich perfectly understood and remembered all his life. No wonder he compared him with Pushkin. And, perhaps, by association, he recalled the immortal lines dedicated to the lyceum teacher Kunitsyn, paraphrasing them:

(Vladimir) a tribute to the heart and mind!

He created (me), he raised (my) flame,

They set the cornerstone

They lit a clean lamp...

Zhabotinsky spoke seven languages. Under his influence, Chukovsky began to study English. Since the part devoted to pronunciation was missing in the old tutorial bought from a second-hand book dealer, Chukovsky’s spoken English was very peculiar: for example, the word “writer” sounded like “writer” to him. Since he was the only one in the editorial office of Odessa News who read the English and American newspapers that came by mail, two years later, on the recommendation of the same Zhabotinsky, Chukovsky was sent as a correspondent to England. In London, an embarrassment awaited him: it turned out that he did not perceive English words by ear. He spent most of his time in the British Museum Library. By the way, here, in London, the friends saw each other for the last time in 1916, ten years after that memorable trip. The role of Zhabotinsky in the development of K.I. Chukovsky as a personality and artist has not been sufficiently studied, however, the currently available materials allow us to talk about the enormous influence that the future outstanding Zionist had on the development of Jewish self-identification in Chukovsky.

All his subsequent life confirms this thesis. In 1903 he married a Jewish girl, Goldfeld from Odessa. An extract from the metric book of the Exaltation of the Cross Church says: “1903, May 24, Mary was baptized. Based on the decree of Hers. Spirit. Consist. On May 16, 1903, for? 5825, St. Baptized Odessa bourgeois Maria Aronova-Berova Goldfeld, of Jewish law, born on June 6, 1880 in St. Baptism was named after Mary ... ". The wedding took place two days later.

“1903 May 26th. Groom: Nikolai Vasiliev Korneichukov, not assigned to any society, Orthodox. religion, first marriage, 21 years old. Bride: Odessa bourgeois Maria Borisova Goldfeld, Orthodox, first marriage, 23 years old. This is followed by the names of the guarantors from the side of the bride and groom (2 people each). Among the guarantors from the side of the groom is the Nikopol tradesman Vladimir Evgeniev Zhabotinsky.

Maria Borisovna Goldfeld was born in the family of an accountant in a private firm. There were eight children in the family, whom their parents sought to educate. Maria studied at a private gymnasium, and one of her older brothers Alexander studied at a real school (for some time in the same class with L. Trotsky). All children were born in Odessa, all have a native language - Jewish. The marriage of the Chukovskys was the first, only and happy. “Never show yourself to people” - such a life position has been preserved by Korney Ivanovich since childhood. Therefore, even in the Diary, he writes about his wife chastely, sparingly: “All Odessa journalists came to the wedding.” And only sometimes the true feeling breaks through. Having visited Odessa in 1936, 33 years after the wedding, he stood near the house where his bride once lived: he remembered a lot. A note appears: "We used to rage here with love." And another poignant entry made after the death of a beloved woman: “I look at this adored face in the coffin ... which I kissed so much - and I feel as if I was being taken to the scaffold ... I go every day to the grave and remember the deceased:. .. here she is in a velvet blouse, and I even remember the smell of this blouse (and in love with him), here is our dates outside the station, at the Kulikovo field ..., here she is on Lanzheron, we go home with her at dawn, here is her father behind a French newspaper ... ". How much love, tenderness and youthful passion in the words of this far from young man who lost his wife and faithful girlfriend after the war! They shared both joy and sorrow. Of the four children (Nikolai, Lydia, Boris and Maria), two older children survived. The youngest daughter Masha died in childhood from tuberculosis. Both sons were at the front during the war. The youngest - Boris - died in the first months of the war; Nicholas was lucky - he returned. Both Nicholas and Lydia were famous writers. Moreover, if the father and eldest son wrote, guided by "internal censorship" - K. Chukovsky remembered for the rest of his life the coven of witches against "Chukovsky" in the 30s, headed by N.K. Krupskaya, there were no restrictions for his daughter. “I am a happy father,” he said with humor to his friends: if the right comes to power, I have Kolya, if the left, Lida.

Soon, however, humor receded far into the background.

During the Great Terror, when Lydia Chukovskaya's husband, the outstanding physicist Matvey Bronstein, was shot in the "general stream", after crazy nights in the lines of relatives near the terrible Kresty prison, where common grief brought her closer to the great Akhmatova for life (she has a prison forever took away her only son), after all the horrors she had endured, Chukovskaya was not afraid of anyone and nothing.

Lidia Korneevna, like her father, lived a long and difficult life (1907-1996). The main role in her life was played by her father, husband and Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak, a friend of her father. Here is what she wrote to her father - twenty years old, from Saratov exile, where she ended up for an anti-Soviet leaflet written at the institute: “You really don’t know that I still, like a child, like a three-year-old, love you ...? I will never believe this, because you are you. After the exile, Marshak took Chukovskaya to work in the Leningrad branch of Detgiz, which he headed. Looking ahead, we point out that during the war he turned out to be her kind guardian angel. Here is what Korney Ivanovich wrote to Samuil Yakovlevich in December 1941: “... I thank you and Sofya Mikhailovna (wife of S.Ya. - V.O.) for their friendly attitude towards Lida. Without your help, Lida would not have reached Tashkent - I will never forget this.” (Marshak helped L.K., who had undergone a serious operation, get out of the hungry and cold Chistopol).

1937, which turned out to be a turning point in the life and worldview of a young woman, found her in Marshakov's Detgiz: the arrest and execution of her husband, the dispersal of the editorial office and the arrests of its members (Chukovsky was "lucky" - she became "only" unemployed) shaped her for life dissident character. I must say that no one has ever been particularly fond of the new government in the Chukovsky family. Here is what Korney Ivanovich wrote in the “Diary” in 1919 after the evening in memory of Leonid Andreev: “The former cultural environment no longer exists - it has died and it takes a century to create it. They don't understand anything complex. I love Andreev through irony, but this is no longer available. Irony is understood only by subtle people, not commissars.” On my own, I can add that Chukovsky was a great optimist: a century is coming soon, and culture is purposefully driven into a corner.

The ill-fated leaflet, written by a nineteen-year-old girl, haunted Lidia Korneevna for many decades. The note of KGB Chairman Yu. Andropov to the Central Committee of the CPSU dated November 14, 1973 says: “Chukovskaya’s anti-Soviet convictions were formed back in the period 1926-1927, when she took an active part in the activities of the anarchist organization Black Cross as a publisher and distributor of the Black Alarm magazine ... This "case" surfaced in the KGB in 1948, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1966, 1967. Indeed, the fear of the KGB has big eyes: she has never been associated with any anarchist magazine, and her anti-Soviet sentiments were born by the Soviet authorities. The date and address of birth are known: 1937, Leningrad, in line at the Kresty prison.

Where did they throw your body? To the hatch?

Where were they shot? In the basement?

Did you hear the sound

Shot? No, hardly.

A shot in the back of the head is merciful:

Shatter the memory.

Do you remember that dawn?

No. Was in a hurry to fall.

In February 1938, having found out in Moscow the wording of the sentence to her husband - "10 years without the right to correspond", she decided to flee from her beloved city. Lidia Korneevna “still returned to Leningrad, but she didn’t go to her apartment, to Kirochnaya either. She lived with friends for two days, and with Lyusha (daughter from her first marriage to the literary critic Ts. Volpe), ... I saw Korney Ivanovich in a public garden. She said goodbye, took money from Korney Ivanovich and left. So the authorities forged dissidents. And what was the significance for the widow, for the whole family, of the fact of the rehabilitation of Matvey Bronstein after Stalin's death? After all, they never believed the accusation that he was an enemy of the people. Before the arrest, Bronstein and Chukovskaya did not have time to register their marriage. “In order to get the right to protect the works of Bronstein,” she writes, “I had to formalize our marriage even when Matvey Petrovich was not alive. Marriage to the dead. Make it to court."

During the rehabilitation period, when the archives of the NKVD were opened, the researchers found the "case" of Bronstein. “Bronstein Matvey Petrovich, 02. 12. 1906, born, born. Vinnitsa, Jew, non-partisan, with a higher education, researcher at the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology, convicted on February 18, 1938 by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR "for active participation in a counter-revolutionary fascist terrorist organization" under Art. 58-8 and 58-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to the highest measure of criminal punishment - execution, with confiscation of all property personally belonging to him. The court sat on February 18 from 8.40 to 9.00. During these 20 minutes, the fate of one of the pillars of Soviet physics was decided. Letters in his defense were written by future academicians Tamm, Fok, Mandelstam, Ioffe, S. Vavilov, Landau, writers Chukovsky and Marshak - they did not know that Bronstein was no longer alive: their efforts were in vain. The last reminder of the dead husband was a sheet from the archival folder with an entry in 1958: “compensate for L.K. Chukovskaya the cost of binoculars seized during a search on August 1, 1937.

I went to the Neva to remember the nights

Crying by the river.

Look into your tomb's eyes,

Measure the depth of longing.

Neva! Say in the end

Where are you doing the dead?

Characteristic is the mutual influence of these two outstanding personalities - physics and lyrics. "Solar Matter" - this is the name of one of Bronstein's popular scientific books. Here is what the outstanding physicist, Nobel Prize winner Lev Landau later said about it: “It is interesting to read it for any reader - from a schoolboy to a professional physicist.” The birth of this amazing book and the emergence of a new children's writer is evidenced by his dedication dated April 21, 1936: "Dear Lidochka, without whom I could never have written this book." In the remaining year and a half of his life, he created two more such masterpieces. So she, a professional writer, managed to inspire an outstanding physicist to create books, the genre of which was still unknown to him. His influence on her was amazing: during her lifetime she was proud of him and enjoyed the community of thoughts and feelings. After his death, she became embittered: “I want the machine to be explored screw by screw, which turned a person full of life, flourishing with activity, into a cold corpse. For her to be sentenced. In a loud voice. It is not necessary to cross out the account by putting a soothing stamp “paid” on it, but to unravel the tangle of causes and effects, seriously, carefully, loop by loop, to disassemble it ... ".

Here is an excerpt from her letter dated 12.10. 1938, in which she describes her impressions of Professor Mamlock: “Yes, fascism is a terrible thing, a vile thing that must be fought. The film shows the persecution of a Jewish professor... The torture used during interrogations, the queues of mothers and wives at the Gestapo window and the answers they receive: “Nothing is known about your son”, “no information”; laws published in newspapers, about which fascist thugs frankly say that these are laws only for world public opinion ... ". In fact, this is a rough draft of her future works. Chukovskaya makes it clear that fascism and Soviet "communism" are twins, that anti-Semitism is a monstrous evil on a global scale.

Both Korney Ivanovich and Lidia Korneevna Chukovsky proved by their life deeds that being a Jew is the proud right of decent people. This should be emphasized especially, since Korney Ivanovich saw the opposite example - his Jewish father, whom he despised for his dishonesty. Fate brought him together with an outstanding person - the Jew Zhabotinsky. It was this man who became an example for him for life. Jewish ideals led to his marriage to a Jewish woman and were instilled in his children. Such is the Jewish "saga" of the Chukovskys.

In conclusion, I would like to touch on one more issue. Both Chukovskys - both father and daughter, very subtly felt the truth and real talent. Chukovsky's phrase is known on a typewritten book of poems by the disgraced poet Alexander Galich: "You, Galich, are a god and don't understand it yourself." Particularly curious are their relationships with Soviet Nobel laureates: past and future. Both father and daughter wrote letters to the Soviet leadership in defense of the future laureate Joseph Brodsky, arrested for "parasitism". It is not worth writing much about the relationship between L. Chukovskaya and Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, the Nobel Peace Prize winner - they were ideological comrades-in-arms in the human rights movement. A heroic deed was performed by L. Chukovskaya, who spoke in 1966. with an open letter to the Nobel Prize winner M Sholokhov in response to his speech at the party congress, in which he demanded the death penalty for the writers Sinyavsky and Daniel. She wrote: “Literature is not under the jurisdiction of the Criminal Court. Ideas should be opposed to ideas, not camps and prisons... Your shameful speech will not be forgotten by history. And literature itself will avenge itself... It will sentence you to the highest measure of punishment that exists for an artist - to creative sterility...”.

Literature was his bread and air, his only normal environment, his human and political refuge. He blossomed at the slightest mention of his beloved author and, on the contrary, felt the deepest despondency in the company of people who read only newspapers and spoke exclusively about fashion or waters ... He endured loneliness more easily than neighborhood with ignoramuses and mediocrity. Tomorrow, March 31, we celebrate the 130th anniversary of the birth of Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky.

Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky (real name Nikolai Ivanovich Korneichukov) was born in 1882 in St. Petersburg. He lived a long, but far from cloudless life, although he was both a famous children's writer and a major literary critic; his services to Russian culture, in the end, were appreciated both at home (Doctor of Philology, laureate of the Lenin Prize) and abroad (honorary doctor of Oxford University).

Chukovsky's mother, Ekaterina Osipovna Korneychukova, a Ukrainian peasant woman from the Poltava province, worked as a servant in the house of Chukovsky's father, a St. Petersburg student Emmanuil Solomonovich Levenson, the son of the owner of printing houses located in several cities. The marriage of Chukovsky's parents was not formally registered, since the Jew Levenson would have to be baptized first, but he was not going to do this.

What would have happened to him if not for his literary abilities? The chances of an illegitimate person to break into the people before the revolution were very small. To top it all off, Nikolai had an awkward appearance: too tall and thin, with exorbitantly large arms, legs and nose ... Modern doctors suggest that Chukovsky had Marfan syndrome - a special hormonal failure leading to gigantism of the body and giftedness of the mind.

The writer himself rarely spoke about his Jewish origin. There is only one reliable source - his "Diary", to which he trusted the most secret: "" I, as an illegitimate child, not even having a nationality (who am I? Jew? Russian? Ukrainian?) Was the most incomplete, difficult person on earth ... It seemed to me that I am the only one - illegal, that everyone is whispering behind my back and that when I show someone (janitor, porter) my documents, everyone internally starts to spit on me ... When the children talked about their fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, I only blushed, hesitated, lied, confused ... "

After the family drama that Korney Ivanovich experienced in childhood, it could well have happened that he would have become a anti-Semite: if only because of love for his mother, if only in revenge for his crippled childhood. This did not happen: the opposite happened - he was drawn to the Jews. After reading, for example, the biography of Yuri Tynyanov, Korney Ivanovich wrote in his diary: “Nowhere in the book does it say that Yuri Nikolayevich was a Jew. Meanwhile, the subtlest intelligence that reigns in his “Vazir Mukhtar” is most often characteristic of the Jewish mind.

Kolya Korneichukov studied at the same gymnasium with Vladimir (Zeev) Zhabotinsky, a future brilliant journalist and one of the most prominent representatives of the Zionist movement. The relationship between them was friendly: they were even expelled from the gymnasium together - for writing a sharp pamphlet on the director.

Information about the relationship of these people, when both left Odessa, has survived (for obvious reasons) little. In Chukovsky's Diary, Zhabotinsky's name appears only in 1964: “Vlad. Jabotinsky (later a Zionist) said of me in 1902:

Chukovsky Roots
vaunted talent
2 times longer
Telephone pole.

Chukovsky acknowledges the enormous influence that Zhabotinsky's personality had on the formation of his worldview. Undoubtedly, Vladimir Evgenievich managed to distract Korney Ivanovich from "self-criticism" in relation to illegitimacy and convince him of his own talent. The publicistic debut of the nineteen-year-old Chukovsky took place in the newspaper Odessa News, where he was brought by Zhabotinsky, who developed in him a love for the language and discerned the talent of a critic.

In 1903, Korney Ivanovich married a twenty-three-year-old woman from Odessa, the daughter of an accountant in a private firm, Maria Borisovna Goldfeld, the sister of Zhabotinsky's wife. Her father, an accountant, dreamed of marrying off his daughter to a respectable Jew with capital, and not at all to a half-poor Gentile bastard, moreover, two years younger than her. The girl had to run away from home.

The marriage was unique and happy. Of the four children born in their family (Nikolai, Lydia, Boris and Maria), only two older children lived a long life - Nikolai and Lydia, who later became writers themselves. The youngest daughter Masha died in childhood from tuberculosis. Son Boris died in 1941 at the front; another son, Nikolai, also fought, participated in the defense of Leningrad. Lydia Chukovskaya (born in 1907) lived a long and difficult life, was subjected to repressions, survived the execution of her husband, the outstanding physicist Matvey Bronstein.

After the revolution, Chukovsky prudently abandoned journalism, as too dangerous an occupation, and concentrated on children's fairy tales in verse and prose. Once Chukovsky wrote to Marshak: “You and I could have died, but, fortunately, we have powerful friends in the world whose name is children!”

By the way, during the war, Korney Ivanovich and Samuil Yakovlevich quarreled in earnest, did not communicate for almost 15 years and began to compete literally in everything: who has more government awards, who is easier to memorize by children, who looks younger, about whose eccentricities there are more jokes.

The question of the sources of the image of Doctor Aibolit is very interesting and is still being discussed by literary critics. For a long time it was believed that the prototype of Dr. Aibolit is Dr. Doolittle, the hero of the book of the same name by the American children's writer Hugh Lofting. But here is a letter from the writer himself, dedicated to what helped him create such a charming image:

“I wrote this story a very, very long time ago. And I thought of writing it even before the October Revolution, because I met Dr. Aibolit, who lived in Vilna. His name was Dr. Tsemakh Shabad. He was the kindest man I have ever known in my life. He treated the children of the poor for free. A thin girl would come to him, he would say to her:

Do you want me to write you a prescription? No, milk will help you, come to me every morning and you will get two glasses of milk.

And in the mornings, I noticed, a whole queue lined up for him. Children not only came to him themselves, but also brought sick animals. So I thought how wonderful it would be to write a fairy tale about such a kind doctor.

Probably the most difficult years for the writer were the 30s. In addition to criticizing his own work, he had to endure severe personal losses. His daughter Maria (Murochka) died of illness, and in 1938 his son-in-law, physicist Matvey Bronstein, was shot. Chukovsky, in order to find out about his fate, knocked around the thresholds of authorities for several years. Saved from depression work. He worked on translations of Kipling, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Shakespeare, Conan Doyle. For children of primary school age, Chukovsky retold the ancient Greek myth about Perseus, translated English folk songs ("Robin-Bobin Barabek", "Jenny", "Kotausi and Mausi", etc.). In the retelling of Chukovsky, Soviet children got acquainted with "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" by E. Raspe, "Robinson Crusoe" by D. Defoe, and "Little Rag" by the little-known J. Greenwood. Children in Chukovsky's life have become a truly source of strength and inspiration.

In the 1960s, Korney Ivanovich started a retelling of the Bible for children. He recruited several up-and-coming children's writers for this project and carefully edited their work. The project, in connection with the anti-religious position of the authorities, advanced with great difficulty. Thus, the editors set a condition that the word "Jews" should not be mentioned in the book. The book entitled "The Tower of Babel and Other Ancient Legends" was published by the Children's Literature publishing house in 1968, but the entire circulation was destroyed by the authorities and did not go on sale. The first reprint available to the general reader took place in 1990.

In the last years of his life, Chukovsky was a popular favorite, winner of many awards and holder of various orders. At the same time, he maintained contacts with Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky and other dissidents, and his daughter Lydia was a prominent human rights activist. At the dacha in Peredelkino, where the writer lived constantly in recent years, he arranged meetings with the surrounding children, talked with them, read poetry, invited famous people, famous pilots, artists, writers, poets to meetings. Former Peredelkino children still remember those gatherings at Chukovsky's dacha.

Once a certain teenager, who was visiting Peredelkino, asked:
- Korney Ivanovich, they say you are terribly rich. This is true?
“You see,” Chukovsky answered seriously, “there are two kinds of rich people. Some think about money and make it - these become wealthy. But a real rich man does not think about money at all.

Don't miss the fun!

Chukovsky's paradoxical advice given by him to novice writers is also very curious: “My friends, work disinterestedly. They pay better for it."

Shortly before his death, Chukovsky read someone's memoirs about Marshak, who had died a few years before, and drew attention to the following thing: it turns out that Samuil Yakovlevich determined his psychological age at five years. Korney Ivanovich became sad: “And I myself am at least six. It's a pity. After all, the younger the child, the more talented he is ... "

Chukovsky Korney Ivanovich (1882-1969) - Russian poet and children's writer, journalist and literary critic, translator and literary critic.

Childhood and youth

Korney Chukovsky is the pseudonym of the poet, his real name is Korneychukov Nikolai Vasilyevich. He was born in St. Petersburg on March 19, 1882. His mother, Poltava peasant Ekaterina Osipovna Korneychukova, worked as a servant in the family of a wealthy doctor Levenson, who came to St. Petersburg from Odessa.

The maid Katerina lived in an illegal marriage for three years with the master's son, student Emmanuil Solomonovich, gave birth to two children from him - the eldest daughter Marusya and the boy Nikolai.

However, the relationship of his son with a peasant woman was opposed by the father of Emmanuel. The Levensons owned several printing houses in different cities, and such an unequal marriage could never become legal. Shortly after the future poet was born, Emmanuil Solomonovich left Catherine and married a woman of his circle.

The mother of Korney Chukovsky with two small children was forced to leave for Odessa. Here on Novorybnaya Street they settled in a small outbuilding. All the childhood of little Nikolai was spent in Nikolaev and Odessa. As the poet recalls his early years: "Mother brought us up democratically - need". For many years, Ekaterina Osipovna kept and often looked at a photograph of a bearded man with glasses and sentenced the children: "Don't be angry with your folder, he is a good person". Emmanuil Solomonovich sometimes helped Katerina with money.

However, little Kolya was very shy of his illegitimacy and suffered from it. It seemed to him that he was the most incomplete little man on earth, that he was the only one on the planet born outside the law. When other children talked about their fathers, grandparents, Kolya blushed, began to invent something, lie and get confused, and then it seemed to him that everyone was whispering about his illegal origin behind his back. He was never able to forgive his father for his joyless childhood, poverty and the stigma of "fatherlessness".

Korney Ivanovich loved his mother very much and always remembered her with warmth and tenderness. From early morning until late at night, she washed and ironed other people in order to earn money and feed her children, while managing to manage the house and cook delicious food. In their little room in the wing it was always cozy and clean, even smart, because there were many flowers and curtains and towels embroidered with patterns hung everywhere. Everything always sparkled, my mother was an unusually clean person and put her wide Ukrainian soul into their small home. She was an illiterate peasant woman, but she made every effort to ensure that her children received an education.

At the age of five, his mother sent Kolya to Madame Bekhteeva's kindergarten. He remembered well how they drew pictures and marched to the music. Then the boy went to study at the second Odessa gymnasium, but after the fifth grade he was expelled due to his low birth. Then he took up self-education, studied English and read a lot of books. Literature invaded his life and completely took possession of the boyish heart. Every free minute he ran to the library and read voraciously indiscriminately.

Nikolai had a lot of friends with whom he went fishing or flying a kite, climbed through attics or, hiding in large dustbins, dreamed of traveling to distant lands. He retold the books he had read by Jules Verne and the novels of Aimard to the boys.

To help his mother, Nikolai went to work: he repaired fishing nets, put up theater posters, and painted fences. However, the older he got, the less he liked the bourgeois Odessa, he dreamed of leaving here for Australia, for which he learned a foreign language.

Journalistic activity

Having become a young man and having grown a mustache, Nikolai tried to take up tutoring, but he could not manage to put on proper solidity. With the children he taught, he entered into disputes and conversations about tarantulas and how to make arrows from reeds, taught them to play robbers and pirates. He didn’t turn out to be a teacher, but then a friend came to the rescue ─ journalist Volodya Zhabotinsky, with whom they were “inseparable” from the very kindergarten. He helped Nikolai get a job at the popular Odessa News newspaper as a reporter.

When Nikolay came to the editorial office for the first time, a huge hole gaped in his leaky trousers, which he covered with a large and thick book, taken with him for this very purpose. But very soon his publications became so popular and beloved among the readers of the newspaper that he began to earn 25-30 rubles per month. At that time it was quite decent money. Immediately under his first articles, the young author began to sign with a pseudonym - Korney Chukovsky, later added a fictitious patronymic - Ivanovich.

Business trip to England

When it turned out that only one Korney knew English in the entire editorial office, the management offered him to go on a business trip to London as a correspondent. The young man had recently married, the family needed to get on its feet, and he was seduced by the proposed salary - 100 rubles a month. Together with his wife, Chukovsky went to England.

His English articles were published by the Odessa News, Southern Review and several Kyiv newspapers. Over time, fees from Russia began to come to London in the name of Chukovsky irregularly, and then completely stopped. The wife was pregnant, but due to lack of funds, Korney sent her to her parents in Odessa, while he himself remained in London, looking for a part-time job.

Chukovsky liked England very much. True, at first no one understood his language, studied independently. But for Korney this was not a problem, he improved it, studying from morning to evening in the library of the British Museum. Here he found a part-time job copying catalogs, and at the same time reading Thackeray and Dickens in the original.

creative literary path

By the revolution of 1905, Chukovsky returned to Russia and completely plunged into the ongoing events. Twice he visited the rebellious battleship Potemkin. Then he left for St. Petersburg and started publishing the satirical magazine "Signal" there. He was arrested for "lèse majesty", spent 9 days under arrest, but soon his lawyer secured an acquittal.

After being released, Korney published the magazine underground for some time, but soon realized that publishing was not suitable for him. He dedicated his life to writing.

At first he was more involved in criticism. From his pen came essays on Blok and Balmont, Kuprin and Chekhov, Gorky and Bryusov, Merezhkovsky and Sergeev-Tsensky. From 1917 to 1926, Chukovsky worked on a work about his favorite poet Nekrasov, in 1962 he received the Lenin Prize for it.

And when he was already a fairly well-known critic, a passion for children's creativity came to Korney:

• In 1916, his first collection of children's poems "Yolka" and the fairy tale "Crocodile" were published.
• In 1923, "Cockroach" and "Moydodyr" were written.
• In 1924 "Barmaley" was published.

For the first time in children's works, a new intonation sounded - no one taught the kids. The author jokingly, but at the same time always sincerely rejoiced, together with young readers, at the beauty of the world around him.

In the late 1920s, Korney Ivanovich had a new hobby - studying the psyche of children and observing how they master speech. In 1933, this resulted in the verbal creative work "From two to five."

Soviet children grew up on his poems and fairy tales, then read them to their children and grandchildren. Until now, many of us remember by heart:

• "Fedorino grief" and "Fly-sokotuhu";
• "The Stolen Sun" and "Confusion";
• "Phone" and "Aibolit".

Almost all the fairy tales of Korney Chukovsky have been made into animated films.
Korney Ivanovich, together with his eldest son, did a lot of translation work. Thanks to their work, the Soviet Union was able to read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "Robinson Crusoe" and "Baron Munchausen", "The Prince and the Pauper", the fairy tales of Wilde and Kipling.

For his creative achievements, Chukovsky received awards: three orders of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of Lenin, numerous medals and a doctorate from Oxford University.

Personal life

The first and only love came to Korney Ivanovich at a very young age. In Odessa, the Goldfeld Jewish family lived on a nearby street. The head of the family of the accountant Aron-Ber Ruvimovich and his wife, the housewife Tuba Oizerovna, had a daughter, Maria. The black-eyed and plump girl really liked Chukovsky.

When it turned out that Masha was not indifferent to him either, Korney proposed to her. However, the girl's parents were against this marriage. Desperate Maria ran away from home, and in 1903 the lovers got married. It was the first, only and happy marriage for both.

Four children were born in the family, father Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky survived three of them.

In 1904, their first-born son, Kolya, was born. Like his father, he was engaged in literary activity all his life, becoming the famous Soviet writer Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky. During the Patriotic War, he participated in the defense of Leningrad, remained in the besieged city. In 1965, he died suddenly in his sleep. The death of his son was a severe blow for 83-year-old Korney Ivanovich.

In 1907, a daughter, Lydia, was born in the Chukovsky family, who also became a writer. Her most famous works are the stories "Sofya Petrovna" and "Descent under the Water", as well as the significant work "Notes on Anna Akhmatova".

In 1910, the son Boris was born. At the age of 31, he died near the Borodino field, returning from reconnaissance. This happened almost immediately after the outbreak of World War II, in the autumn of 1941.

The youngest daughter Maria in the Chukovsky family was born in 1920. The late child was madly loved by everyone, she was affectionately called Murochka, it was she who became the heroine of most of her father's children's stories and poems. But closer to the age of 10, the girl fell ill, she had incurable bone tuberculosis. The baby became blind, stopped walking and cried a lot from the pain. In 1930, the parents took Murochka to the Alupka sanatorium for children with tuberculosis.

For two years, Korney Ivanovich lived as if in a dream, went to his sick daughter, and together with her composed children's poems and fairy tales. But in November 1930, the girl died in her father's arms, he personally made a coffin for her from an old chest. Murochka was buried there, in the Crimea.

It was after her death that he transferred his love for his daughter to all the children of the Soviet Union and became a universal favorite - grandfather Korney.

His wife Maria died in 1955, 14 years earlier than her husband. Every day, Korney Ivanovich went to her grave and recalled the happy moments of their lives. He clearly remembered her velvet blouse, even the smell, their dates until dawn, all the joys and troubles that they had to endure together.

Two granddaughters and three grandchildren continued the family of the famous children's poet, Korney Ivanovich has a lot of great-grandchildren. Some of them connected their lives with creativity, like a grandfather, but there are other professions in the Chukovsky family tree - a doctor of medical sciences, a producer of the directorate of NTV-Plus sports channels, a communications engineer, a chemist, a cameraman, a historian-archivist, resuscitator.

In the last years of his life, Korney Ivanovich lived in Peredelkino in the country. Often he gathered kids at his place, invited famous people to such meetings - artists, pilots, poets and writers. The kids loved these gatherings with tea at the dacha of Grandfather Korney.

On October 28, 1969, Korney Ivanovich died of viral hepatitis. He was buried at the cemetery in Peredelkino.

This dacha is now a functioning museum of the writer and poet grandfather Korney.

Korney Chukovsky, who gained fame as a children's poet, was for a long time one of the most underestimated writers of the Silver Age. Contrary to popular belief, the genius of the creator manifested itself not only in poems and fairy tales, but also in critical articles.

Due to the non-ceremonial specifics of creativity, the state throughout the life of the writer tried to discredit his works in the eyes of the public. Numerous research works have made it possible to look at the eminent artist with "different eyes". Now the works of the publicist are read out by both people of the "old school" and young people.

Childhood and youth

Nikolai Korneichukov (real name of the poet) was born on March 31, 1882 in the northern capital of Russia - the city of St. Petersburg. Mother Ekaterina Osipovna, being a servant in the house of the eminent doctor Solomon Levenson, entered into a vicious relationship with his son Emmanuel. In 1799, the woman gave birth to a daughter, Maria, and three years later gave her civil husband an heir, Nikolai.

Despite the fact that the relationship of the offspring of a noble family with a peasant woman in the eyes of the society of that time looked like a blatant misalliance, they lived together for seven years. The poet's grandfather, who did not want to be related to a commoner, in 1885, without explanation, put his daughter-in-law on the street with two babies in her arms. Since Ekaterina could not afford separate housing, together with her son and daughter, she went to relatives in Odessa. Much later, in the autobiographical story "Silver Emblem", the poet admits that the southern city never became his home.

The childhood years of the writer passed in an atmosphere of devastation and poverty. The publicist's mother worked in shifts either as a seamstress or a laundress, but there was a catastrophic lack of money. In 1887, the world saw the Circular on the Cook's Children. In it, the Minister of Education I.D. Delyanov recommended that the directors of gymnasiums accept only those children whose origin did not raise questions in the ranks of students. Due to the fact that Chukovsky did not fit this “definition”, in the 5th grade he was expelled from a privileged educational institution.

In order not to wander around idle and benefit the family, the young man took on any job. Among the roles that Kolya tried on himself were a newspaper peddler, a roof cleaner, and a poster sticker. At that time, the young man began to take an interest in literature. He read adventure novels, studied works and, in the evenings, under the sound of the surf, recited poetry.

Among other things, a phenomenal memory allowed the young man to learn English in such a way that he translated texts from a sheet, never stammering. At that time, Chukovsky did not yet know that Ohlendorf's self-instruction manual did not contain pages on which the principle of correct pronunciation was described in detail. Therefore, when, years later, Nikolai visited England, the fact that the locals practically did not understand him incredibly surprised the publicist.

Journalism

In 1901, inspired by the works of his favorite authors, Korney wrote a philosophical opus. The poet's friend Vladimir Zhabotinsky, having read the work from cover to cover, took it to the Odessa News newspaper, thus marking the beginning of Chukovsky's 70-year literary career. For the first publication, the poet received 7 rubles. For a lot of money at that time, the young man bought himself a presentable-looking pants and shirt.

After two years of work in the newspaper, Nikolai was sent to London as a correspondent for Odessa News. Throughout the year, he wrote articles, studied foreign literature, and even rewrote catalogs in the museum. During the trip period, eighty-nine works by Chukovsky were published.

The writer fell in love with British aestheticism so much that after many, many years he translated Whitman's works into Russian, and also became the editor of the first four-volume book, which in the blink of an eye acquired the status of a reference book in all families that love literature.

In March 1905, the writer moved from sunny Odessa to rainy St. Petersburg. There, the young journalist quickly finds a job for himself: he gets a job as a correspondent for the Teatralnaya Rossiya newspaper, where his reports on the performances he has watched and the books he has read are published in each issue.

The subsidy of the singer Leonid Sobinov helped Chukovsky to publish the Signal magazine. The publication printed exclusively political satire, and among the authors were, and even Teffi. Chukovsky was arrested for ambiguous cartoons and anti-government writings. The eminent lawyer Gruzenberg managed to achieve an acquittal and release the writer from prison nine days later.

Further, the publicist collaborated with the magazines "Vesy" and "Niva", as well as with the newspaper "Rech", where Nikolai published critical essays on contemporary writers. Later, these works were scattered among the books: "Faces and Masks" (1914), "Futurists" (1922), "From to Our Days" (1908).

In the autumn of 1906, the writer's place of residence was a dacha in Kuokkale (the shore of the Gulf of Finland). There, the writer was lucky to meet the artist, poets and. Later, Chukovsky spoke about cultural figures in his memoirs Repin. . Mayakovsky. . Memories "(1940).

The humorous handwritten almanac "Chukokkala" published in 1979 was also collected here, where they left their creative autographs, and. At the invitation of the government in 1916, Chukovsky, as part of a delegation of Russian journalists, again went on a business trip to England.

Literature

In 1917, Nikolai returned to St. Petersburg, where, accepting the offer of Maxim Gorky, he took over as head of the children's department of the Parus publishing house. Chukovsky tried on the role of a storyteller while working on the almanac "Firebird". Then he opened the world to a new facet of his literary genius, writing "Chicken", "Dog Kingdom" and "Doctor".

Gorky saw great potential in his colleague's tales and suggested that Korney "try his luck" and create another work for the children's supplement of the Niva magazine. The writer was worried that he would not be able to release a workable product into the world, but the inspiration itself found the creator. It was on the eve of the revolution.

Then, with his sick son Kolya, the publicist was returning from his dacha to St. Petersburg. In order to distract his beloved child from bouts of illness, the poet began to invent a fairy tale on the go. There was no time to develop the characters and the plot.

The whole bet was on the fastest alternation of images and events, so that the boy did not have time to moan or cry. And so the work "Crocodile" published in 1917 was born.

After the October Revolution, Chukovsky traveled around the country with lectures and collaborated with various publishing houses. In the 1920s and 1930s, Korney wrote the works “Moydodyr” and “Cockroach”, and also adapted the texts of folk songs for children's reading, releasing the collections “Red and Red” and “Skok-jump”. The poet published ten poetic tales one after another: “Fly-Tsokotuha”, “Wonder Tree”, “Confusion”, “What Mura did”, “Barmaley”, “Telephone”, “Fedorino grief”, “Aibolit”, "The Stolen Sun", "Toptygin and the Fox".

Korney ran around the publishing houses, not for a second parting with the proofs, and followed every printed line. Chukovsky's works were published in the magazines "New Robinson", "Hedgehog", "Bonfire", "Chizh" and "Sparrow". For the classic, everything developed in such a way that at some point the writer himself believed that fairy tales were his calling.

Everything changed after a critical article in which a revolutionary who had no children called the works of the creator "bourgeois dregs" and argued that not only an anti-political message was disguised in Chukovsky's works, but also false ideals.

After that, a secret meaning was seen in all the works of the writer: in "Fly-Tsokotukha" the author popularized the individualism of Komarik and the frivolity of Fly, in the fairy tale "Fedorino Gor" he glorified petty-bourgeois values, in "Moydodyr" he purposefully did not voice the importance of the leading role of the Communist Party, but in the main the censors completely saw the caricature image of the hero of the "Cockroach".

The persecution brought Chukovsky to the extreme degree of despair. Korney himself began to believe that no one needed his fairy tales. In December 1929, the poet's letter was published in Literaturnaya Gazeta, in which he, renouncing his old works, promises to change the direction of his work by writing a collection of poems, Merry Collective Farm. However, the work never came out from under his pen.

The fairy tale of the war years “Let's overcome Barmaley” (1943) was included in the anthology of Soviet poetry, and then crossed out personally by Stalin. Chukovsky wrote another work, The Adventures of Bibigon (1945). The story was printed in "Murzilka", recited on the radio, and then, calling it "ideologically harmful", was banned from reading.

Tired of fighting critics and censors, the writer returned to journalism. In 1962, he wrote the book "Alive as Life", in which he described the "diseases" that affected the Russian language. Do not forget that the publicist, who studied creativity, published the complete works of Nikolai Alekseevich.

Chukovsky was a storyteller not only in literature, but also in life. He repeatedly did things that his contemporaries, due to their cowardice, were not capable of. In 1961, the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" fell into his hands. Having become its first reviewer, Chukovsky, together with Tvardovsky, convinced him to print this work. When Alexander Isaevich became persona non grata, it was Korney who hid him from the authorities at his second dacha in Peredelkino.

In 1964, the trial began. Korney, together with - one of the few who were not afraid to write a letter to the Central Committee with a request to release the poet. The literary heritage of the writer has been preserved not only in books, but also in cartoons.

Personal life

Chukovsky met his first and only wife at the age of 18. Maria Borisovna was the daughter of the accountant Aron-Ber Ruvimovich Goldfeld and the housewife Tuba (Tauba). The noble family never approved of Korney Ivanovich. At one time, the lovers even planned to escape from Odessa, hated by both, to the Caucasus. Despite the fact that the escape did not take place, in May 1903 the couple got married.

Many Odessa journalists came to the wedding with flowers. True, Chukovsky needed not bouquets, but money. After the ceremony, the resourceful guy took off his hat and began to walk around the guests. Immediately after the celebration, the newlyweds left for England. Unlike Korney, Maria stayed there for a couple of months. Upon learning that his wife was pregnant, the writer immediately sent her to her homeland.

On June 2, 1904, Chukovsky received a telegram stating that his wife had safely given birth to a son. On that day, the feuilletonist arranged a holiday for himself and went to the circus. Upon his return to St. Petersburg, the baggage of knowledge and life experiences accumulated in London allowed Chukovsky to very quickly become the leading critic of St. Petersburg. Sasha Cherny, not without malice, called him Korney Belinsky. In just two years, yesterday's provincial journalist was on friendly terms with all the literary and artistic beau monde.

While the artist traveled around the country with lectures, his wife raised children: Lydia, Nikolai and Boris. In 1920, Chukovsky became a father again. Daughter Maria, whom everyone called Murochka, became the heroine of many of the writer's works. The girl died in 1931 from tuberculosis. After 10 years, the youngest son Boris died in the war, and 14 years later, the wife of the publicist, Maria Chukovskaya, also died.

Death

Korney Ivanovich passed away at the age of 87 (October 28, 1969). The cause of death is viral hepatitis. The dacha in Peredelkino, where the poet lived in recent years, was turned into a house-museum of Chukovsky.

To this day, lovers of the writer's work can see with their own eyes the place where the eminent artist created his masterpieces.

Bibliography

• "Solar" (story, 1933);
• "Silver Coat of Arms" (story, 1933);
• "Chicken" (fairy tale, 1913);
• "Aibolit" (fairy tale, 1917);
• "Barmaley" (fairy tale, 1925);
• Moydodyr (fairy tale, 1923);
• "Fly-Tsokotuha" (fairy tale, 1924);
• “We will overcome Barmaley” (fairy tale, 1943);
• "The Adventures of Bibigon" (fairy tale, 1945);
• "Confusion" (fairy tale, 1914);
• "The Kingdom of the Dog" (fairy tale, 1912);
• "Cockroach" (fairy tale, 1921);
• "Telephone" (fairy tale, 1924);
• Toptygin and the Fox (fairy tale, 1934);