Shaw, Bernard - a short biography. Bernard Shaw - biography

George Bernard Shaw is an English playwright of Irish origin, one of the founders of the “drama of ideas”, writer, essayist, one of the reformers of theatrical art of the 20th century, after Shakespeare, the second most popular author of plays in the world. English theater, laureate Nobel Prize in literature, winner of the Oscar.

Born in Dublin, Ireland on July 26, 1856. The future writer’s childhood was overshadowed by his father’s addiction to alcohol and discord between his parents. Like all children, Bernard went to school, but he learned his main life lessons from the books he read and the music he listened to. After graduating from school in 1871, he began working in a company trading land plots. A year later he took the position of cashier, but four years later, having hated the job, he moved to London: his mother lived there, having divorced his father. WITH youth Shaw saw himself as a writer, but the articles he sent to various editors were not published. For 9 years, only 15 shillings - a fee for a single article - was earned by his writing, although during this period he wrote as many as 5 novels.

In 1884, B. Shaw joined the Fabian Society and within a short time gained fame as a talented speaker. Visiting reading room British Museum for the purpose of self-education, he met W. Archer and thanks to him he began to engage in journalism. After initially working as a freelance correspondent, Shaw worked as a music critic for six years and then worked for the Saturday Review as a theater critic for three and a half years. The reviews he wrote comprised a three-volume collection, “Our Theater of the Nineties,” published in 1932. In 1891, Shaw’s original creative manifesto was published - a lengthy article “The Quintessence of Ibsenism,” the author of which revealed a critical attitude towards contemporary aesthetics and sympathy for the drama that illuminated would be conflicts of a social nature.

His debut in the field of drama was the plays “The Widower's House” and “Mrs. Warren's Profession” (1892 and 1893, respectively). They were intended to be staged in an independent theater, which was a closed club, so Shaw could afford to be bold in depicting aspects of life that his contemporary art usually avoided. These and other works were included in the “Unpleasant Plays” cycle. In the same year, “Pleasant Plays” was released, and “representatives” of this cycle began to penetrate the stage of large metropolitan theaters in the late 90s. The first huge success came from “The Devil’s Disciple,” written in 1897, which was part of the third cycle, “Plays for the Puritans.”

The playwright's finest hour came in 1904, when the management of the Kord Theater changed and a number of his plays were included in the repertoire - in particular, Candida, Major Barbara, Man and Superman, etc. After successful productions, Shaw finally the reputation of an author who boldly deals with public morality and traditional ideas about history and subverts what was considered an axim was established. A contribution to the golden treasury of dramaturgy was the resounding success of Pygmalion (1913).

During the First World War, Bernard Shaw had to listen to many unflattering words and direct insults addressed to him by spectators, fellow writers, newspapers and magazines. Nevertheless, he continued to write, and in 1917 a new stage began in his creative biography. The tragedy "Saint Joan", staged in 1924, returned B. Shaw past glory, and in 1925 he becomes the Nobel Prize laureate in literature, and refuses its monetary component.

At the age of over 70 in the 30s. The show travels around the world, visiting India, South Africa, New Zealand, and the USA. He also visited the USSR in 1931, and in July of this year he personally met with Stalin. Being a socialist, Shaw sincerely welcomed the changes taking place in the country of the Soviets and became a supporter of Stalinism. After the Labor Party came to power, B. Shaw was offered a peerage and nobility, but he refused. He later agreed to be awarded the status of an honorary citizen of Dublin and one of the London counties.

B. Shaw wrote until he was very old. He wrote his last plays, “Billions of Byant” and “Fictional Fables,” in 1948 and 1950. Remaining completely sane, the famous playwright died on November 2, 1950.

One of only two people in history (the other being Bob Dylan) to have been awarded both the Nobel Prize in Literature (“For a work marked by idealism and humanism, for a sparkling satire that is often combined with exceptional poetic beauty”) and an Oscar. (for the script of the film “Pygmalion”). Active promoter of vegetarianism.

Encyclopedic YouTube

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  George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin on July 26, 1856, the son of George Shaw, a grain merchant, and Lucinda Shaw, a professional singer. He had two sisters: Lucinda Frances, a theater singer, and Elinor Agnes, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 21.

  Shaw attended Wesley College in Dublin and grammar school. He received his secondary education in Dublin. At the age of eleven he was sent to a Protestant school, where he was, in his own words, the penultimate or last student. He called school the most harmful stage of his education: “It never occurred to me to prepare lessons or tell the truth to this universal enemy and executioner - the teacher.” The education system was repeatedly criticized by Shaw for focusing on mental rather than spiritual development. The author especially criticized the system of physical punishment at school. At fifteen he became a clerk. The family did not have the means to send him to university, but his uncle’s connections helped him get a job at Townsend’s fairly well-known real estate agency. One of Shaw's duties was to collect rent from the inhabitants of the Dublin slums, and the sad impressions of these years were subsequently embodied in "Widower's Houses". He was, in all likelihood, a fairly capable clerk, although the monotony of the job bored him. He learned to keep accounting books neatly, and also to write in quite legible handwriting. Everything written in Shaw's handwriting (even in advanced years) was easy and enjoyable to read. This served Shaw well later, when he became a professional writer: typesetters had no trouble with his manuscripts. When Shaw was 16 years old, his mother ran away from home with her lover and daughters. Bernard decided to stay with his father in Dublin. He received an education and became an employee in a real estate office. He did this work for several years, although he did not like it.

  In 1876, Shaw went to his mother in London. The family greeted him very warmly. During this time he visited public libraries and museums. He began to study intensively in libraries and created his first works, and later wrote a newspaper column dedicated to music. However, his early novels were not successful until 1885, when he became known as a creative critic.

  In the first half of the 1890s, he worked as a critic for the London World magazine, where he was replaced by Robert Hichens.

  At the same time, he became interested in social democratic ideas and joined the Fabian Society, whose goal was to establish socialism through peaceful means. It was in this society that he met his future wife, Charlotte Payne-Townshend, whom he married in 1898. Bernard Shaw had connections on the side.

  In recent years, the playwright lived in his own home and died at 94 from kidney failure. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered along with those of his wife.

  Creation

  Bernard Shaw's first play was presented in 1892. By the end of the decade, he had already become a famous playwright. He wrote sixty-three plays, as well as novels, criticism, essays, and more than 250,000 letters.

  Novels

  Shaw wrote five unsuccessful novels early in his career between 1879 and 1883. Later they were all published.

  Shaw's first published novel was The Profession of Cough Byron (1886), written in 1882. The main character of the novel is a wayward schoolboy who, together with his mother, emigrates to Australia, where he participates in fights for money. He returns to England for a boxing match. Here he falls in love with a smart and rich woman Lydia Carew. This woman, attracted by animal magnetism, agrees to marriage despite their differences. social status. Then it turns out that the main character is of noble birth and the heir to a large fortune. Thus, he becomes a member of Parliament and married couple becomes an ordinary bourgeois family.

  The novel "Not a Social Socialist" was published in 1887. It starts out describing a girls' school, but then focuses on a poor worker who is actually hiding his fortune from his wife. He is also an active fighter for the promotion of socialism. From this point on, the entire novel focuses on socialist themes.

  The novel Love Among the Artists was written in 1881 and published in 1900 in the United States and in 1914 in England. In this novel, using the example of Victorian society, Shaw shows his views on art, romantic love and marriage.

  The Irrational Knot is a novel written in 1880 and published in 1905. In this novel, the author condemns hereditary status and insists on the nobility of workers. The institution of marriage is called into question by the example of a noble woman and a worker who became rich from the invention of the electric motor. Their marriage breaks down due to the family members' inability to find common interests.

  Shaw's first novel, Immaturity, written in 1879, was his last published novel. It describes the life and career of Robert Smith, an energetic young Londoner. Condemnation of alcoholism is the first message in the book, based on the author's family memories.

  Plays

  The show completely breaks with the prim Puritan morality that is still characteristic of a large part of the wealthy circles of English society. He calls things by their real names, considers it possible to depict any everyday phenomenon, and to a certain extent is a follower of naturalism.

  Shaw began working on the first play, The Widower's House, in 1885. After some time, the author gave up continuing work on it and completed it only in 1892. The play was presented at the Royal Theater in London on December 9, 1892. In this play, Shaw gave a picture of the life of the London proletarians, remarkable in its realism. The play begins with the fact that a young man is going to marry a girl whose father rents out slums to the poor, who pay their last money for them. The young man wants to give up both the marriage and the dowry, which he received through the hellish labor of the poor, but then he learns that his income is based on the labor of the poor. Very often Shaw acts as a satirist, mercilessly ridiculing the ugly and vulgar sides English life, especially - the life of bourgeois circles (“John Bull’s Other Island”, “Arms and the Man”, “How He Lied to Her Husband”, etc.).

  In the play Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893), a young girl learns that her mother receives income from brothels, and therefore leaves home to earn money by honest work.

  Bernard Shaw's plays, like those of Oscar Wilde, incorporate the sharp humor unique to Victorian playwrights. Shaw began to reform the theater by introducing new themes and inviting audiences to ponder moral, political, and economic issues. In this he is close to the dramaturgy of Ibsen with his realistic drama, which he used to solve social problems.

  As Shaw's experience and popularity increased, his plays became less focused on the reforms he advocated, but their entertainment value did not diminish. Works such as Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905) and The Doctor in a Dilemma (1906) show the mature views of the author, who was already 50 years old.

  Until the 1910s, Shaw was a fully formed playwright. New works such as Fanny's First Play (1911) and Pygmalion (1912) were well known to London audiences.

  In the most popular play, Pygmalion, based on a Greek myth in which a sculptor asks the gods to bring a statue to life, Pygmalion appears as professor of phonetics Higgins. His Galatea is street flower vendor Eliza Doolittle. A professor tries to correct the language of a girl who speaks Cockney. Thus, the girl becomes like a noble woman. By this, Shaw is trying to say that people are only different in appearance.

  Shaw's views changed after the First World War, which he disapproved of. His first work written after the war was the play Heartbreak House (1919). Appeared in this play new show- the humor remained the same, but his faith in humanism was shaken.

  Shaw had previously supported a gradual transition to socialism, but now he saw a government led by a strongman. For him, dictatorship was obvious. At the end of his life, his hopes also died. Thus, in the play “Billions of Buyant” ( Buoyant Billions, 1946-48), his last play, he says that one should not rely on the masses, who act like a blind crowd and can choose people like Hitler as their rulers.

  In 1921, Shaw completed Back to Methuselah, a five-play pentalogy that begins in the Garden of Eden and ends a thousand years in the future. These plays argue that life is perfected through trial and error. Shaw himself considered these plays a masterpiece, but critics had a different opinion.

  After Methuselah, the play Saint John (1923) was written, which is considered one of his best works. The idea of ​​writing a work about Joan of Arc and her canonization appeared in 1920. The play gained worldwide fame and brought the author closer to the Nobel Prize (1925).

  Shaw also has plays in the psychological genre, sometimes even touching the field of melodrama (“Candida”, etc.).

  The author created plays until the end of his life, but only a few of them became as successful as his early works. The Apple Cart (1929) became the most famous play of this period. Later works, such as Bitter But True, Broke (1933), Millionairess (1935) and Geneva (1935), did not receive widespread public recognition.

  Trip to the USSR

  From July 21 to July 31, 1931, Bernard Shaw visited the USSR, where on July 29 he had a personal meeting with Joseph Stalin. In addition to the capital, Shaw visited the outback - the commune named after. Lenin (Irskaya commune) of the Tambov region, which was considered exemplary. Returning from Soviet Union Shaw said:

  “I am leaving the state of hope and returning to our Western countries - countries of despair... For me, an old man, it is a deep consolation, going to my grave, to know that world civilization will be saved... Here in Russia, I am convinced that the new communist system is capable of leading humanity out of the modern crisis and saving it from complete anarchy and destruction.”

  In an interview given in Berlin on the way home, Shaw praised Stalin as a politician:

  "Stalin is a very nice man and truly the leader of the working class... Stalin is a giant, and all Westerners are pygmies."

  “In Russia there is no parliament or other nonsense like that. Russians are not as stupid as we are; It would be difficult for them to even imagine that there could be fools like us. Of course, the statesmen of Soviet Russia have not only a huge moral superiority over ours, but also a significant mental superiority.”

  Being a socialist in his political views, Bernard Shaw also became a supporter of Stalinism and the “other USSR.” Thus, in the preface to his play “Aground” (1933), he provides a theoretical basis for the OGPU repressions against the enemies of the people. In an open letter to the editor of the newspaper Manchester Guardian Bernard Shaw calls the information that appeared in the press about the famine in the USSR (1932-1933) a fake.

  In a letter to the newspaper Labor Monthly Bernard Shaw also openly sided with Stalin and Lysenko in the campaign against genetic scientists.

  Dramaturgy

  1885-1896

  • Plays Unpleasant, published 1898
    • “Widower’s Houses” (1885-1892)
    • "Heartbreaker" (The Philanderer, 1893)
    • "The Profession of Mrs. Warren" (1893-1894)
  • Plays Pleasant, published 1898
    • “Weapon and man” ()
    • "Candida" (Candida, 1894-1895)
    • “The Man of Destiny” (1895)
    • “We'll wait and see” (You Never Can Tell, 1895-1896)

  1896-1904

  • "Three Plays for Puritans"
    • “The Devil’s Disciple” (1896-1897)
    • Caesar and Cleopatra, 1898
    • Captain Brassbound's Conversion, 1899
  • “The Admirable Bashville; or, Constancy Unrewarded, 1901”
  • "A Sunday Afternoon Among the Surrey Hills" (1888)
  • "Man and Superman" (English) Russian (« Man and Superman», -)
  • John Bull's Other Island (1904)

  1904-1910

  • How He Lied to Her Husband (1904)
  • "Major Barbara" (Major Barbara, 1906)
  • "The Doctor's Dilemma" (1906)
  • “The Interlude at the Playhouse” (1907)
  • Getting Married (1908)
  • “The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet” (1909)
  • Trifles and tomfooleries
    • “Passion, Poison and Petrifaction; or, the Fatal Gasogene, 1905”
    • "Newspaper Cuttings" (Press Cuttings, 1909)
    • "The Fascinating Foundling" (1909)
    • "A Little Reality" (The Glimps of Reality, 1909)
  • « Unequal marriage"(Misalliance, 1910)

  1910-1919

  • "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets" ( The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, 1910)
  • Fanny's First Play (1911)
  • Androcles and the Lion (1912)
  • "Overruled" (1912)
  • "Pygmalion" (Pygmalion, 1912-1913)
  • "Great Catherine" (Great Catherine, 1913)
  • “The Music-cure” (1913)
  • "O'Flaherty, Commander of the Order of Victoria" (O'Flaherty, V.C.,)
  • “The Inca of Perusalem” (1916)
  • Augustus Does His Bit (1916)
  • Annajanska, the Wild Grand Duchess, 1917
  • “The House Where Hearts Break” (Heartbreak House, 1913-1919)

  1918-1931

  • "Back to Methuselah" (1918-1920)
    • Part I. “In the Beginning”
    • Part II. "The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas"
    • Part III. “It’s finished!” (The Thing Happens)
    • Part IV. "Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman"
    • Part V. “As Far as Thought Can Reach”
  • "Saint Joan" (1923)
  • "The Apple Cart" (1929)
  • “Bitter, but true” (Too True To Be Good, 1931)

  1933-1950

  Bibliography

  • Brown, G.E. "George Bernard Shaw". Evans Brothers Ltd, 1970
  • Chappelow, Alan. "Shaw the Villager and Human Being - a Biographical symposium", with a preface by Dame Sybil Thorndike (1962). "Shaw - "the Chucker-Out", 1969. ISBN 0-404-08359-5
  • Elliot, Vivian. "Dear Mr Shaw Selections from Bernard Shaw's postbag" Bloomsbury, 1987 ISBN 0-7475-0256-0. With an introduction by Michael Holroyd
  • Evans, T.F. "Shaw: The Critical heritage". The Critical Heritage series. Routlege & Kegan Paul, 1976
  • Gibbs, A. M (Ed.). "Shaw: Interviews and Recollections."
  • Gibbs, A.M. "Bernard Shaw, A Life". University of Florida Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8130-2859-0
  • Henderson, Archibald. "Bernard Shaw: Playboy and Prophet". D. Appleton & Co., 1932
  • Holroyd, Michael (Etd). "The Genius of Shaw: A symposium", Hodder & Stoughton, 1979
  • Holroyd, Michael. "Bernard Shaw: The One-Volume Definitive Edition", Random House, 1998. ISBN 978-0-393-32718-2

  see also

  Notes

  1. German National Library, Berlin State Library, Bavarian State Library, etc. Record #118642375 // General regulatory control (GND) - 2012-2016.
  2. ID BNF: Open Data Platform - 2011.
  3. Bernard Shaw

  Bernard Show- a talented writer, an English playwright of Irish origin, was called during his lifetime “the second playwright of the English theater after William Shakespeare.” He became the only person who was awarded 2 major awards in the field of art:

  • In 1925, Bernard Shaw became a laureate Nobel Prize in literature "For creativity marked by idealism and humanism, for sparkling satire, which is often combined with exceptional poetic beauty." From cash payment he refused the bonus.
  • In 1938 he was awarded "Oscar" for the script for the film "Pygmalion".

  short biography

  Bernard Show ( full name – George Bernard Shaw) was born July 26, 1856 in the Irish city of Dublin. His father - George Shaw, grain merchant. His mother - Lucinda Shaw, professional singer.

  Study period

  Attended the show "Wesley College" in Dublin and a grammar school. He received his secondary education in Dublin. At the age of 11 he was sent to Protestant school, where he was, in his own words, the penultimate or last student.

  He called the school the most harmful stage your education. Here is one of his quotes on this topic:

  “It never occurred to me to prepare lessons or tell the truth to this universal enemy and executioner - the teacher”

  Attitude to the education system

  The education system has been criticized more than once by Shaw for focusing on the mental, not spiritual development. The author especially criticized the system of physical punishment at school.

  Despite this attitude, Bernard Shaw is known for his education, but this merit belongs exclusively to desire to develop. Shaw spent a lot of time during his life in the reading rooms of libraries - engaged in self-development.

  First position

  At age 15, George Bernard becomes clerk at a real estate agency. One of Shaw's duties was to collect rent from the inhabitants of the Dublin slums, and the sad impressions of these years were subsequently embodied in "Widower's House". He did this work for several years, although he did not like it.

  Moving to London

  At the age of 16, Bernard stayed with his father in Ireland - his mother went to London with her two daughters. After 4 years, he decided to move to the capital of Britain. It was during this period that he began his vigorous activity as a writer.

  Bernard Shaw visited British libraries and wrote novels, which, however, they did not immediately want to publish anywhere. Only 9 years later, in 1885, his early works began to be noticed. Perhaps this was facilitated by the fact that Shaw at that moment became a creative critic.

  Streak of "failures"

  If you look at the life of the British playwright, it might seem that up to 36 years old he was haunted by a streak of failures: his novels were not published, he did not find himself in music, and his political career did not bear fruit.

  However, it was simply a search for “my” activity. And this search was successfully completed when he became acquainted with the work of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen:

  Reading his plays and watching them in the theater convinced Bernard Shaw that he could do it too!

  Bernard Shaw's first play

  In 1892, at the age of 36, Shaw wrote his first play - "Widower's House", in which he spoke ironically about the institution of marriage. He tried to realize it, but theaters refused to accept it, although the directors found the script entertaining.

  The Making of a Playwright

  Refusals did not stop the aspiring playwright - he continued to write plays “on the topic of the day,” describing the social aspects of life. He worked with such effort that he simply overstrained himself and became very ill.

  Through the efforts of his future wife, a philanthropist Charlotte Payne Thousand, who simply adored the theater, B. Shaw was able to overcome his illness and recovered. She not only took care of Bernard's illness, but also helped him to succeed as a playwright.

  Recognition abroad

  In 1902 London theater called " Independent", staged "Widower's Houses". The play met with a cold reception from the public, but discussion in the press testified to the attention to the topic raised.

  Bernard Shaw began working on the following plays, and this is how “ The Devil's Disciple», « Weapons and people" They were not staged in London, but in Vienna and Berlin they were a complete success. His plays have appeared in the United States.

  The show was recognized abroad

  Later in Great Britain they came to their senses, staged the playwright’s early plays, recognized his skill and called "second only to Shakespeare".

  Heroes of B. Shaw's plays

  His plays had little action, but makes a lot of sense. His heroes reasoned, taught, criticized, were not afraid to call a spade a spade, and did not hide their moods and feelings. This was new.

  Show ridiculed mercilessly the ugly and vulgar sides of English life. The lords turned up their noses, the common people clapped furiously. The British public gradually became accustomed to Shaw and his paradoxes.

  The playwright's paradoxes

  During the First World War, Shaw was not afraid to speak critically of the combatants, and in his play “ The house where hearts break"predicted future tragic events.

  In the next play, " Saint Joan", about Joan of Arc, for some reason he condemned his heroine and considered her death sentence quite natural. The public refused to understand him.

  Shaw and Stalin

  In 1931 Bernard Shaw visited the USSR. He was given the most cordial welcome. They almost carried him in their arms. Stalin himself received the playwright and talked with him for a long time.

  Shaw was fascinated by the Land of the Soviets and, upon arriving in London, criticized bourgeois conservative foundations that have no future. Is it the promised land, where Comrade Stalin rules...

  last years of life

  In recent years, the playwright lived in his own house in Hertfodshire (England). He created plays for the rest of his life, but only a few of them became as successful as his early works.

  « Applecart(1929) became the most famous play of this period. Later works such as " Bitter but true», « On the rocks"(1933), " Millionaire" (1935) and " Geneva"(1935), did not receive wide public recognition.

  At the age of 94, November 2, 1950, Bernard Shaw died of kidney failure. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered along with those of his wife.

  
  
  

  The only person to be awarded both the Nobel Prize in Literature (1925, “For creativity marked by idealism and humanism, for sparkling satire, which is often combined with exceptional poetic beauty”) and the Oscar Award (1938, for the screenplay of the film “Pygmalion”) .

  Shaw refused the monetary part of the Nobel Prize in Literature (however, he accepted the laureate's medal; Boris Pasternak and Jean-Paul Sartre also subsequently refused the prize).

  en.wikipedia.org

  Biography

  
  
  

  Early on he became interested in social democratic ideas; attracted attention with his apt theatrical and musical reviews; later he himself acted as a playwright and immediately provoked sharp attacks from people who were indignant at their imaginary immorality and excessive courage; has become increasingly popular with the English public in recent years and has found admirers on the continent thanks to the appearance of critical articles about him and translations of his selected plays (for example, German- Trebitsch). The show completely breaks with the prim Puritan morality that is still characteristic of a large part of the wealthy circles of English society. He calls things by their real names, considers it possible to depict any everyday phenomenon, and to a certain extent is a follower of naturalism.

  The play “The Philanderer” reflected the author’s rather negative, ironic attitude towards the institution of marriage, as it was at that time; in Widower's Houses, Shaw gave a remarkable, realistic picture of the life of the London proletarians. Very often, Shaw acts as a satirist, mercilessly ridiculing the ugly and vulgar aspects of English life, especially the life of bourgeois circles (“John Bull’s Other Island”, “Arms and the Man”, “How He Lied to Her Husband”, etc.).

  Shaw also has plays in the psychological genre, sometimes even touching the area of ​​melodrama (“Candida”, etc.).

  He also owns a novel written at an earlier time: “Love in the World of Artists.”

  When writing this article, material was used from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron (1890-1907).

  In the first half of the 1890s. worked as a critic for the London World magazine, where he was succeeded by Robert Hichens.

  Trip to the USSR

  
  
  
  

  In the 1930s, Bernard Shaw toured the USSR, where he had a personal meeting with Joseph Stalin. Being a socialist in his political views, Bernard Shaw also became a supporter of Stalinism and a “friend of the USSR.” Thus, in the preface to his play “Aground” (1933), he tried to provide a “theoretical basis” for the OGPU repressions against the enemies of the people. In an open letter to the editor of the Manchester Guardian newspaper, Bernard Shaw calls information about the Holodomor that appeared in the press a fake. In a letter to the Labor Monthly newspaper, Bernard Shaw also openly sided with Stalin and Lysenko in the campaign against genetic scientists.

  Dramaturgy

  1885-1896

  * Plays Unpleasant, published 1898
  * “Widower’s Houses” (1885-1892)
  * "Heartbreaker" (The Philanderer, 1893)
  * Mrs. Warren's Profession, 1893-1894
  * Plays Pleasant, published 1898
  * “Arms and Man” (English) Russian. ("Arms and the Man", 1894)
  * "Candida" (Candida, 1894-1895)
  * “The Man of Destiny” (1895)
  * “Wait and see” (You Never Can Tell, 1895-1896)

  1896-1904

  * "Three Plays for Puritans"
  * “The Devil’s Disciple” (1896-1897)
  * “Caesar and Cleopatra” (Caesar and Cleopatra, 1898)
  * “Captain Brassbound’s Conversion” (1899)
  * “The Admirable Bashville; or, Constancy Unrewarded, 1901”
  * "A Sunday Afternoon Among the Surrey Hills" (1888)
  * “Man and Superman” (English) Russian. (“Man and Superman”, 1901-1903)
  * “John Bull’s Other Island” (John Bull’s Other Island, 1904)

  1904-1910

  * “How He Lied to Her Husband” (1904)
  * “Major Barbara” (Major Barbara, 1906)
  * “The Doctor's Dilemma” (1906)
  * “The Interlude at the Playhouse” (1907)
  * "Getting Married" (1908)
  * “The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet” (1909)
  * “Trifles and tomfooleries”
  * “Passion, Poison and Petrifaction; or, the Fatal Gasogene, 1905”
  * "Newspaper Cuttings" (Press Cuttings, 1909)
  * “The Fascinating Foundling” (1909)
  * “A Little Bit of Reality” (The Glimps of Reality, 1909)
  * "An Unequal Marriage" (Misalliance, 1910)

  1910-1919

  * “The Dark Lady of the Sonnets” (1910)
  * “Fanny’s First Play” (1911)
  * “Androcles and the Lion” (Androcles and the Lion, 1912)
  * "Overruled" (Overruled, 1912)
  * “Pygmalion” (Pygmalion, 1912-1913)
  * “Great Catherine” (Great Catherine, 1913)
  * “The Music-cure” (1913)
  * "O'Flaherty, MVP" (O'Flaherty, V.C.,)
  * “The Inca of Perusalem” (1916)
  * “Augustus Does His Bit” (1916)
  * “Annajanska, the Wild Grand Duchess” (Annajanska, the Wild Grand Duchess, 1917)
  * “House where hearts break” (Heartbreak House, 1913-1919)

  1918-1931

  * “Back to Methuselah” (1918-1920)
  * Part I. “In the Beginning”
  *Part II. "The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas"
  *Part III. “It’s finished!” (The Thing Happens)
  * Part IV. "Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman"
  * Part V. “As Far as Thought Can Reach”
  * “Saint Joan” (Saint Joan, 1923)
  * “The Apple Cart” (1929)
  * “Bitter, but true” (Too True To Be Good, 1931)

  1933-1950

  Notes

  1. Tatyana Vorontsova Visiting the “big brother”:
  In the Soviet Union, the great playwright and his companions received a warm welcome and a rich cultural program. The Kremlin, the Lenin Mausoleum, the Park of Culture and Leisure, a car trip around the city, the world-famous Tairov production of Bertolt Brecht’s “The Beggars’ Opera” at the Chamber Theater, an “industrial excursion” (a visit to an electrical plant, where the writer talked with workers and, separately, with members of the Literary Club), meetings at OGIZ, vacations in Uzky, visits to M. Gorky and N. Krupskaya and, finally, a large-scale celebration of Bernard Shaw’s 75th birthday in the Hall of Columns - this is Moscow. The Hermitage, the Russian Museum, a car tour of the city, meetings with writers (including at the Evropeyskaya Hotel), a visit to the pioneer camp in Detskoye Selo, an acquaintance with the best works of Soviet cinema and filming in a sound documentary at the Soyuzkino factory (where Shaw gave a speech about Lenin) - this is Leningrad. During a magnificent celebration in the Hall of Columns, Shaw said: “I want Stalin ... to become a living person for me, and not remain just a name,” before I leave Moscow. The hero of the day’s wish came true - a personal meeting with the Soviet leader took place on the evening of July 29. Lord and Lady Astor, Lord Lothien and the USSR People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov also took part in the conversation, which lasted almost three hours. On the night of July 31, the English guests went home. “I am leaving the state of hope and returning to our Western countries - countries of despair”; “For me, an old man, it is a deep consolation, going to my grave, to know that world civilization will be saved... Here in Russia, I am convinced that the new communist system is capable of leading humanity out of the modern crisis and saving it from complete anarchy and death” - this is how the English playwright said goodbye to the USSR. As soon as the travelers crossed the border, they became the object of close attention of journalists. Shaw gave his first interview in Berlin. In it he stated: “Stalin is a very pleasant person and truly the leader of the working class,” “Stalin is a giant, and all Western figures are pygmies.” In London, the paradoxical playwright read an hour and a half talk on the topic of the trip (August 6). Here are a number of excerpts from it: “In Russia there is no parliament or other nonsense of that kind. Russians are not as stupid as we are; It would be difficult for them to even imagine that there could be fools like us. Of course, the statesmen of Soviet Russia have not only a huge moral superiority over ours, but also a significant mental superiority”;

  2. Letters to the Editor: Social Conditions in Russia by George Bernard Shaw, published in The Manchester Guardian, 2 March 1933. Gareth Jones" Memorial Website. Retrieved 3 June 2007. (English)
  3. Shaw, George Bernard (January 1949), "The Lysenko Muddle", Labor Monthly (English)

  Biography

  
  
  

  George Bernard Shaw (Shaw, George Bernard) (1856-1950), Irish playwright, philosopher and prose writer, an outstanding critic of his time and the most famous - after Shakespeare - playwright writing in English. Born 26 July 1856 in Dublin. His father, having failed in business, became addicted to alcohol; the mother, disillusioned with the marriage, became interested in singing. Shaw did not learn anything in the schools he attended, but he learned a lot from the books of Charles Dickens, W. Shakespeare, D. Bunyan, the Bible, the Arabian tales of One Thousand and One Nights, as well as listening to operas and oratorios in which his mother sang, and contemplating paintings in the Irish National Gallery.

  At the age of fifteen, Shaw got a job as a clerk in a land sales company. A year later he became cashier and held this position for four years. Unable to overcome his disgust for such work, at the age of twenty he went to London to live with his mother, who, after divorcing her husband, earned her living by giving singing lessons.

  
  
  

  Shaw decided to make a living at a young age literary work, and although the articles sent out returned to him with depressing regularity, he continued to besiege the editors. Only one of his articles was accepted for publication, paying the author fifteen shillings - and that was all that Shaw earned with his pen in nine years. Over the years, he wrote five novels, which were rejected by all English publishing houses.

  In 1884 Shaw joined the Fabian Society and soon became one of its most brilliant speakers. At the same time, he improved his education in the reading room of the British Museum, where he met the writer W. Archer (1856-1924), who introduced him to journalism. After working for some time as a freelance correspondent, Shaw received a position as a music critic in one of the evening newspapers. After six years of music reviewing, Shaw worked as a theater critic for the Saturday Review for three and a half years. During this time, he published books about H. Ibsen and R. Wagner. He also wrote plays (the collection Pleasant and Unpleasant Plays - Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant, 1898). One of them, Mrs. Warren's Profession, first staged in 1902, was banned by censorship; the other, You Never Can Tell (1895), was rejected after several rehearsals; the third, Arms and the Man (1894), was not understood at all. In addition to those mentioned, the collection includes the plays Candida (1895), The Man of Destiny (1897), Widower’s Houses (1892) and The Philanderer (1893). Staged in America by R. Mansfield, The Devil's Disciple (1897) is Shaw's first play to be a box office success.

  
  
  

  Shaw wrote plays, reviews, acted as a street speaker, promoting socialist ideas, and, in addition, was a member of the municipal council of St. Pancras, where he lived. Such overloads led to a sharp deterioration in health, and if not for the care and attention of Charlotte Payne-Townsend, whom he married in 1898, things could have ended badly. During a prolonged illness, Shaw wrote the plays Caesar and Cleopatra (1899) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900), which the writer himself called a “religious treatise.” In 1901, The Devil's Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra, and The Address of Captain Brasbound were published in Three Plays for Puritans. In Caesar and Cleopatra, Shaw's first play to feature real historical figures, - the traditional idea of ​​a hero and heroine has been changed beyond recognition.

  Having not succeeded in the path of commercial theater, Shaw decided to make drama a vehicle for his philosophy, publishing the play Man and Superman in 1903. However, the following year his time came. The young actor H. Granville-Barker (1877-1946), together with the entrepreneur J. E. Vedrenne, took over the management of the London Court Theater and opened the season, the success of which was ensured by old and new plays by Shaw - Candide, Let's wait and see, John Bull's Other Island (John Bull's Other Island, 1904), Man and Superman, Major Barbara (1905) and The Doctor's Dilemma (1906).

  
  
  

  Now Shaw decided to write plays entirely devoid of action. The first of these discussion plays, Getting Married (1908), had some success among intellectuals, the second, Misalliance (1910), proved a little difficult for them too. Having given up, Shaw wrote a frankly box-office trifle - Fanny's First Play (1911), which ran on the stage of a small theater for almost two years. Then, as if to recoup this concession to the taste of the crowd, Shaw created a true masterpiece - Androcles and the Lion (Androcles and the Lion, 1913), followed by the play Pygmalion (1914), staged by G. Beerbohm-Three at His Majesty's Theatre. with Patrick Campbell as Eliza Doolittle.

  During the First World War, Shaw was an exceptionally unpopular figure. The press, the public, and colleagues showered him with insults, but meanwhile he calmly finished the play Heartbreak House (1921) and prepared his testament to the human race - Back to Methuselah (1923), where he put it into dramatic form. form their evolutionist ideas. In 1924, fame returned to the writer; he gained worldwide recognition with the drama Saint Joan. In Shaw's eyes, Joan of Arc is a herald of Protestantism and nationalism, and therefore the sentence passed on her by the medieval church and the feudal system is quite logical. In 1925, Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he refused to accept.

  
  
  
  

  The last play to bring Shaw success was The Apple Cart (1929), which opened the Malvern Festival in honor of the playwright.

  In years when most people had no time for travel, Shaw visited the USA, USSR, South Africa, India, and New Zealand. In Moscow, where Shaw arrived with Lady Astor, he talked with Stalin. When the Labor Party, for which the playwright had done so much, came to power, he was offered nobility and a peerage, but he refused everything. At the age of ninety, the writer nevertheless agreed to become an honorary citizen of Dublin and the London parish of St. Pancras, where he lived in his youth.

  Shaw's wife died in 1943. The writer spent his remaining years in seclusion in Eyot St. Lawrence (Hertfordshire), where, at the age of ninety-two, he completed his last play, Buoyant Billions (1949). Until the end of his days, the writer maintained clarity of mind. Shaw died in Heyot St. Lawrence on November 2, 1950.

  Biography

  
  
  

  (1856-1950), Irish playwright, philosopher and prose writer, an outstanding critic of his time and the most famous - after Shakespeare - playwright who wrote in English. Born 26 July 1856 in Dublin. His father, having failed in business, became addicted to alcohol; the mother, disillusioned with the marriage, became interested in singing. Shaw did not learn anything in the schools he attended, but he learned a lot from the books of Charles Dickens, W. Shakespeare, D. Bunyan, the Bible, the Arabian tales of One Thousand and One Nights, as well as listening to operas and oratorios in which his mother sang, and contemplating paintings in the Irish National Gallery. At the age of fifteen, Shaw got a job as a clerk in a land sales company. A year later he became cashier and held this position for four years. Unable to overcome his disgust for such work, at the age of twenty he went to London to live with his mother, who, after divorcing her husband, earned her living by giving singing lessons.

  Shaw, already in his youth, decided to make a living from literary work, and although the articles sent out returned to him with depressing regularity, he continued to besiege the editors. Only one of his articles was accepted for publication, paying the author fifteen shillings - and that was all that Shaw earned with his pen in nine years. Over the years, he wrote five novels, which were rejected by all English publishing houses. In 1884 Shaw joined the Fabian Society and soon became one of its most brilliant speakers. At the same time, he improved his education in the reading room of the British Museum, where he met the writer W. Archer (1856-1924), who introduced him to journalism. After working for some time as a freelance correspondent, Shaw received a position as a music critic in one of the evening newspapers. After six years of music reviewing, Shaw worked as a theater critic for the Saturday Review for three and a half years. During this time, he published books about H. Ibsen and R. Wagner.

  
  
  

  He also wrote plays (the collection Pleasant and Unpleasant Plays - Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant, 1898). One of them, Mrs. Warren's Profession, first staged in 1902, was banned by censorship; the other, You Never Can Tell (1895) was rejected after several rehearsals; the third, Arms and the Man ( Arms and the Man, 1894), no one understood at all. In addition to those named, the collection included the plays Candida (Candida, 1895), The Man of Destiny (1897), Widower's Houses, 1892 and Heartbreaker ( The Philanderer, 1893). Staged in America by R. Mansfield, The Devil's Disciple (1897) is Shaw's first play to be a box office success. Shaw wrote plays, reviews, acted as a street speaker, promoting socialist ideas, and, in addition, was a member of the municipal council St. Pancras County, where he lived.

  Such overloads led to a sharp deterioration in health, and if not for the care and attention of Charlotte Payne-Townsend, whom he married in 1898, things could have ended badly. During a protracted illness, Shaw wrote the plays Caesar and Cleopatra (1899) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900), which the writer himself called a "religious treatise." In 1901, The Devil's Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra and the Conversion Captain Brasbound were published in the collection Three Plays for Puritans. In Caesar and Cleopatra - Shaw's first play, where real historical figures act - the traditional idea of ​​​​a hero and heroine is changed beyond recognition. Having not succeeded in the path of commercial theater, Shaw decided to make drama a vehicle for his philosophy, publishing the play Man and Superman in 1903.

  
  
  

  However, the following year his time came. The young actor H. Granville-Barker (1877-1946), together with the entrepreneur J. E. Vedrenne, took over the management of the London Court Theater and opened the season, the success of which was ensured by old and new plays by Shaw - Candide, Let's wait and see, John Bull's Other Island (John Bull's Other Island, 1904), Man and Superman, Major Barbara (Major Barbara, 1905) and The Doctor's Dilemma, 1906. Now Shaw decided to write plays entirely devoid of action. The first of these discussion plays, Getting Married (1908), had some success among intellectuals, the second, Misalliance (1910), proved a little difficult for them too. Having given up, Shaw wrote a frankly box-office trifle - Fanny's First Play (1911), which ran on the stage of a small theater for almost two years.

  Then, as if to recoup this concession to the taste of the crowd, Shaw created a true masterpiece - Androcles and the Lion (Androcles and the Lion, 1913), followed by the play Pygmalion (1914), staged by G. Beerbohm-Three at His Majesty's Theatre. with Patrick Campbell as Eliza Doolittle. During the First World War, Shaw was an exceptionally unpopular figure. The press, the public, and colleagues showered him with insults, but meanwhile he calmly finished the play Heartbreak House (1921) and prepared his testament to the human race - Back to Methuselah (1923), where he put it into dramatic form. form their evolutionist ideas. In 1924, fame returned to the writer; he gained worldwide recognition with the drama Saint Joan. In the eyes of Shaw, Joan of Arc is the herald of Protestantism and nationalism, and therefore the sentence passed on her by the medieval church and the feudal system is quite natural.

  
  
  
  

  In 1925, Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he refused to accept. The last play to bring Shaw success was The Apple Cart (1929), which opened the Malvern Festival in honor of the playwright. In years when most people had no time for travel, Shaw visited the USA, USSR, South Africa, India, and New Zealand. In Moscow, where Shaw arrived with Lady Astor, he talked with Stalin. When the Labor Party, for which the playwright had done so much, came to power, he was offered nobility and a peerage, but he refused everything. At the age of ninety, the writer nevertheless agreed to become an honorary citizen of Dublin and the London parish of St. Pancras, where he lived in his youth. Shaw's wife died in 1943. The writer spent his remaining years in seclusion in Eyot St. Lawrence (Hertfordshire), where, at the age of ninety-two, he completed his last play, Buoyant Billions (1949). Until the end of his days, the writer maintained clarity of mind. Shaw died on November 2, 1950.

  LITERATURE

  * J.B. Show About drama and theater. M., 1963
  * Romm A.S. George Bernard Shaw. L. - M., 1965
  * Hughes E. Bernard Shaw. M., 1968 Shaw J.B. Novels. M., 1971
  * J.B. Show Letters. M., 1971
  * Obraztsova A.G. Bernard Shaw and European theatrical culture on turn of XIX-XX centuries. M., 1974
  * J.B. Show Complete collection plays, vols. 1-6. M., 1978-1980
  * J.B. Show Autobiographical notes. Articles. Letters. M., 1989
  * Pearson H. Bernard Shaw. M., 1998

  Biography

  
  
  

  Bernard Shaw is an outstanding English playwright, one of the founders of realistic drama of the 20th century, a talented satirist, and humorist. His work enjoys well-deserved fame among us and arouses universal interest. In our literary criticism, a whole science has been created about the work of Bernard Shaw. Its foundations were laid by A.V. Lunacharsky, who showed a deep and sympathetic interest in the searches, contradictions and creative originality of the writer.

  Recently, scientists have defended a number of doctoral and master's theses on the work of B. Shaw and published a number of books, including a carefully commented volume of the playwright's letters (1971), his statements on drama and theater (1963), a book by A.G. Obraztsova about his theatrical and directorial activities (1974). The merits of the Soviet researchers A. Anikst, P. Balashov, and I. Kantorovich who wrote about the work of B. Shaw are great. Several books were dedicated to Bernard Shaw, his dramatic method and his influence on English and European theater by A.G. Obraztsova. In England, the name of Bernard Shaw is on a par with the name of William Shakespeare, although Shaw was born three hundred years later than his predecessor. Both of them made an invaluable contribution to the development of the national theater of England, and the work of each of them became known far beyond the borders of their homeland.

  
  
  
  

  Having experienced its greatest flowering during the Renaissance, English drama rose to new heights only with the arrival of Bernard Shaw. He is Shakespeare's only worthy companion; he is rightly considered the creator of modern English drama. Continuing the best traditions English drama, and having absorbed the experience greatest masters contemporary theater - Ibsen and Chekhov - Shaw's work opens a new page in the literature of the 20th century. Shaw chooses laughter as the main weapon in his fight against social injustice. This weapon served him flawlessly. “My way of joking is to tell the truth,” these words of Bernard Shaw help to understand the originality of his accusatory laughter, which has been loudly sounding from the stage for a whole century. Bernard Shaw was born in 1856 in Dublin, Ireland. Throughout the 19th century. The “Green Island,” as Ireland was called, was seething. The liberation struggle grew. Ireland sought independence from England. Her people lived in poverty, but did not want to endure enslavement. The childhood and youth of the future writer passed in the atmosphere of grief and anger experienced by his homeland. Shaw's parents came from the impoverished nobility. The life of the family was unsettled and unfriendly. Lacking a practical spirit, the constantly drunk father did not succeed in his chosen business - the grain trade. Shaw's Mother - a woman of extraordinary musical abilities– I was forced to support my family myself. She sang in concerts and later earned a living by teaching music. Little attention was paid to the children in the family; there were no funds to educate them. But in their moods and views, Shaw’s parents belong to the advanced patriotic strata of Dublin society. They did not adhere to religious dogma and raised their children to be free-thinking atheists.

  The main credit for this belonged to Shaw's mother, whose character was not broken by the unfortunate situation. family life. Shaw studied at a Dublin school, but his stay there was not particularly joyful for him. It is no coincidence that he later wrote: “I didn’t learn anything at school and forgot a lot.” However school course he was not completed. At the age of fifteen he began to earn his own living. He served as a small man in a land office. Collected rent from residents of poor areas of Dublin. He got to know the life of the city slums well. By the age of twenty, Shaw had received the position of senior cashier. This was no little, but by this time Shaw’s interests had already been determined. Nothing to do with career they did not have an official.

  
  
  
  

  Shaw was deeply interested in art - literature, painting, music. In 1876 Shaw left Ireland and moved to London. He had no specific occupation and no means of subsistence, but his range of interests and cultural needs was very wide. He was fond of theater, under the pseudonym Corno de Bosseto published his first music review, and then for a number of years appeared in print as a music critic. Shaw was not only a connoisseur of music, but also a great player himself. His name is becoming well known in London theater circles. Shaw never separated his pursuit of art from his inherent interest in the socio-political life of his time. He attends meetings of Social Democrats, takes part in debates, persistently developing his skills as a speaker, and reads Marx’s “Capital” with passion and deep interest - a work that, in his own words, was a revelation for him. Shaw's interest in pressing contemporary issues was evident in his earliest works. In the period from 1879 to 1883. Shaw wrote five novels: Immaturity, An Unwise Marriage, The Loves of Artists, The Profession of Cashiel Byron, and The Single Socialist. In those years, Shaw's novels did not receive recognition. The aspiring writer had to endure a long and unequal battle with numerous publishers. He received only refusals, but did not give up.

  An innovator by nature, Shaw sought to introduce something new into the novel. Shaw's novels testified to his inherent skill as a playwright, which was still waiting for an opportunity to be revealed. In the novels, it manifested itself in a clearly expressed tendency towards dialogic form, in brilliantly constructed dialogues, which occupy the main place in all of Shaw’s works without exception. In 1884, Shaw joined the Fabian Society, shortly after its creation. It was a social reformist organization that sought to lead the labor movement. The members of the Fabian Society considered their task to be the study of the foundations of socialism and the ways of transition to it. Shaw acted as a true innovator in the field of drama. He established himself in the English theater new type drama - an intellectual drama in which the main place belongs not to intrigue, not to an exciting plot, but to those intense disputes and witty verbal duels that its heroes wage. Shaw called his plays “discussion plays.” They captivated us with the depth of the problems and the extraordinary form of their resolution; they excited the consciousness of the viewer, forced him to think intensely about what was happening and laugh merrily along with the playwright at the absurdity of existing laws, orders, and morals. The beginning of the show's dramatic activity was associated with the Independent Theater, which opened in 1891 in London. Its founder was the famous English director Jacob Grain. The main task that Grein set for himself was to familiarize the English viewer with modern dramaturgy. The “Independent Theater” contrasted the flow of entertaining plays that filled the repertoire of most English theaters of those years with dramaturgy big ideas. Many plays by Ibsen, Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Gorky were staged on its stage. Bernard Shaw also began writing for the Independent Theater.

  
  
  

  Shaw begins his path as a playwright with a series of plays, united under the general title “Unpleasant Plays.” These included: “The Widower's House,” which Shaw began working on in 1885, “Mrs. Warren's Profession,” and “Red Tape.” In his preface to Unpleasant Plays, Shaw wrote: “...the power of dramatic art in these plays is to force the spectator to face unpleasant facts. Undoubtedly, every author who sincerely desires the good of humanity does not at all take into account the monstrous opinion that the task of literature is flattery. But in these dramas we are faced not only with the comedy and tragedy of the individual character and the fate of the individual, but also with the terrible and disgusting sides of the social order. The horror of these relationships is that the ordinary mediocre An Englishman, a man, perhaps even dreaming of a thousand-year reign of grace, - in his social manifestations turns out to be a criminal citizen, turning a blind eye to the most vile and most terrible abuses, if their elimination threatens him with losing even one penny of his income.” In “Unpleasant Plays” we see outwardly quite decent respectable English bourgeoisie, who have significant capital and lead a quiet, well-ordered life. But this calm is deceptive. It conceals such phenomena as exploitation, the dirty, dishonest enrichment of the bourgeoisie at the expense of poverty and misfortune common people. Before the eyes of readers and spectators of Shaw's plays, pictures of injustice, cruelty and meanness of the bourgeois world pass through. It is characteristic that Shaw's plays begin with traditional pictures of the everyday life of a bourgeois family. But now, as usually happens in Ibsen’s dramas, there comes a moment when social aspect a question that deeply concerns the writer: where are the sources of the heroes’ wealth? on what means do they live? In what ways did they manage to achieve the well-being in which they find themselves? The bold posing of these questions and no less the answers to them form the basis of the accusatory power of Shaw's plays, which outraged some and could not help but impress and delight others.

  Bernard Shaw's second cycle of plays was Pleasant Plays. These included: “War and Man”, “Candida”, “The Chosen One of Fate”, “You Can Never Tell”. In “Pleasant Plays” Shaw changes the techniques of satirical exposure. If in “Unpleasant Plays” he addressed the “terrible and disgusting aspects of the social order” and angrily attacked the social order, then in “Pleasant Plays” he focuses on that hypocritical morality, which is designed to hide the true essence of bourgeois relations. In these plays, Shaw aims to shed those romantic veils that hide the cruel truth of reality. He calls on people to take a sober and courageous look at life and free themselves from the sticky web of prejudices, outdated traditions, misconceptions and empty illusions. And if in “Unpleasant Plays”, creating the images of Sartorius, Crofts and trying to emphasize the cruelty and inhumanity of these people, Shaw willingly turned to the technique of the grotesque, then the heroes of his “Pleasant Plays” are much more “ humane people” and there is no deliberate sharpness or sharpening in their image. But at the same time, the wretchedness of the spiritual world of the bourgeois, the inveterate bias of his judgments, the perverted ideas hiding under a respectable appearance, callousness and selfishness - all this is shown with great power of penetration into the very essence of bourgeois ideology. The title itself – “Pleasant Pieces” – sounds quite frankly ironic.

  
  
  
  

  Another cycle of plays, “Plays for the Puritans,” was created in the period from 1897 to 1899. This includes the plays “The Devil's Disciple”, “Caesar and Cleopatra”, “The Conversion of Captain Brassbound”. In the preface to Plays for the Puritans, Shaw explains the meaning of the collection's title. He contrasts his plays dramatic works, in which the main interest is focused on love intrigue and eroticism. This does not mean that Shaw shuns the depiction of feelings, but he does not want to admit that only love motives underlie human actions. “I am a puritan in my views on art,” he declares. “I sympathize with feelings, but I believe that replacing all intellectual activity and honesty with sensual ecstasy is the greatest evil.” The show seeks to show the diversity of forms of human activity, contrasting its broadly understood duty and responsibility with narrowly selfish motives and blind sensuality. Shaw's Puritanism is associated with the heroic Puritan traditions of the era of the English Revolution, the era of Cromwell and Milton.

  THE LIFE OF REMARKABLE PEOPLE IN THEIR OWN

  THE OUTSTANDING English playwright Bernard Shaw, known for his wit, once attended the premiere of a play based on his play. During the first act, the young actress playing the role of the main character, from the excitement caused by the presence of the great playwright, forgot the text.
  The pause dragged on beyond all decency. Twenty minutes later, when it became clear to everyone in the hall that this silence was not the director’s find at all, the eyes of those present turned towards Bernard Shaw. Everyone was curious how the famous wit would get out of this situation.
  And so, to the pleasure of the stalls, Shaw slowly climbed onto the balcony, dusted off his tailcoat, looked around the audience with a sly look and remarked in a soft baritone:
  - This mess!

  
  
  
  

  THE OUTSTANDING English playwright Bernard Shaw, known for his wit, once went backstage after the premiere of his play based on one of his many plays. A young and inexperienced actress, who played the role of the main character in the play, immediately approached him. When the girl timidly asked the master about the quality of her game, the famous wit clenched his fists... However, this is not a typical story. She characterizes Shaw not as a witty person, but rather as a hot-tempered, rude person, although quite strong.

  THE OUTSTANDING English playwright Bernard Shaw, known for his wit, once walked along the Thames embankment in the company of Colonel Higgins. They came across a ragged London ragamuffin. Oddly enough, the illiterate slum dweller immediately recognized the playwright and suddenly chased after him, shaking his stick and shouting something indignant about his daughter, an aspiring actress.
  Bernard Shaw, not at all embarrassed, winked slyly at Higgins and remarked in a soft baritone:
  - Help!

  THE OUTSTANDING English playwright Bernard Shaw, known for his wit, was once walking along the Thames embankment in the company of Colonel Mortimer, Colonel Higgins and two policemen. then they came across a ragged London ragamuffin.
  The famous wit turned to his companions and, slyly pointing his cane at the ragamuffin, remarked in a soft baritone:
  - Here he is!

  
  
  

  THE OUTSTANDING English playwright Bernard Shaw, known for his wit, usually returned home well after midnight. One day, several admirers of his talent approached him in the gateway and asked why this famous wit never parted with his muskrat top hat?
  Perhaps for the first time, Shaw was not immediately found and could not wittily parry this malicious attack. He just spread the snowdrift with his arms and the air with his legs.

  THE OUTSTANDING English playwright Bernard Shaw, known for his wit, usually returned home early. At least until dark, while avoiding annoying fans and gateways.
  But then one day Shaw returned home too early. This was also noticed by his fans who were in his apartment at that moment. They were curious why such a famous wit couldn’t sit quietly in the theater?
  For the second time in his life (and the last), Shaw was not found immediately. He was found only three days later, somewhere in the suburbs of Liverpool.

  THE OUTSTANDING English playwright Bernard Shaw, known more for his wit than for his plays, was only once received by the Queen of England.
  - Where is the show? - Her Majesty asked everyone impatiently.
  Colonel Mortimer led the queen to the playwright and introduced him:
  - Here's the show!
  - Then you can start it! - Her Majesty slyly remarked in her soft baritone voice.
  The musicians immediately began to play, and Shaw was carried to Westminster Abbey to other, no less famous playwrights.

  Animals are my friends... Bernard Shaw

  
  
  

  Bernard Shaw's kitchen

  Shaw was not a connoisseur of culinary art, like, say, Gogol or Dumas the Father, but he was forced to practically learn the fruits of vegetarian cuisine, and he became a convinced vegetarian at the age of twenty-five. He ate rice, puddings, soups, salads and sauces from vegetables and fruits, drank milk and soda water, loved honey, nut cutlets and devoured sweets like a schoolboy. Shaw never smoked or drank wine, inspired by the negative example of his father. Although Shaw himself had no access to the home kitchen, he remained a “shadow theorist” of his diet. The writer made arithmetic calculations of the calorie content of foods, took into account weight, age, profession and strictly monitored diet, weighing himself daily on cabinet scales. The traditional five o'clock tea in England was strictly observed by Shaw, but at this hour he drank milk, snacking on cookies or home-baked cake. After Shaw's death, his housekeeper Alice Layden published the book "The Vegetarian Cooking of George Bernard Shaw." The book contains many recipes for preparing vegetarian dishes that the writer loved, menus are given for breakfasts, lunches, lunches and dinners, as well as interesting episodes and facts about the vegetarianism of the great playwright. Here's one episode. One day Shaw asked his housekeeper Alice if she had enough money to pay the bills.
  “Yes,” Alice answered. - I'll exchange your checks for butcher shop And that's enough for me.
  - What-o-o? At the butcher shop? - Shaw shouted. - You know that I don’t eat meat and I don’t want the butcher to touch my checks! Stop it forever; I'd rather open a bank account for you...

  
  
  
  

  The show refutes

  At one time, a rumor spread in London that staunch vegetarian Bernard Shaw ate a steak somewhere and thereby broke his vow never to touch meat. Annoyed by this “duck,” he was forced to refute it: “The rumor about the steak I supposedly ate was a pathetic fabrication of the enemy.” Even my wife is beginning to doubt the inevitability of cannibalism...
  Why demand from me an account of why I eat like a decent person? If I were eating the burnt corpses of innocent creatures, you would have reason to ask me why I do this.
  People are the only animals that I am terrified of.
  It is quite clear that a person can get enough of both steak and bread and cheese. The whole question is, does he create a lower or higher form of life in himself by eating steak? I think lower.

  
  
  

  He's already good

  Shaw was completely exhausted during the rehearsals of his Pygmalion. Taking pity on him, the artist who played Higgins suggested:
  - Maybe we should feed the vegetarian Shaw a steak and thereby inject at least a little blood into his veins? But actress Patrick Campbell protested loudly:
  - For God's sake, don't! He's already good. And if you give him meat, what woman in London will vouch for her safety!..

  
  
  
  

  Trainers

  Dearest Ellen!
  Public excitement over trained animals is nothing new to me. Mrs. Hayden Coffin was still doing this. Alas! All this is nothing more than a drop in the ocean of cruelty, and I cannot understand why the animals do not either conspire among themselves and destroy the human race, as we destroy the tigers, or commit suicide in despair.

  The trainers of the learned dogs should be shot on the spot: their very faces betray them much more eloquently than their whips and their treatment of the unfortunate creatures. The only animals that I think enjoy performing are sea lions and seals. They will not do anything unless they are immediately rewarded with a fish treat. I think that the two dozen lions surrounded by our modern lady-tamers are so fed up that they will turn away in disgust even if a tender and fat baby is presented to them; I still feel sorry for them for being so bored. But when the lady tamer whips them in the eyes, trying to get them to grumble: “Leave me alone, for God’s sake!” - I hope every time that they will tear her apart, “every time my hopes are not justified - they are disgusted even to touch her. Birds and tigers languishing in captivity make an impression more painful than the prisoners of the Bastille in ancient ballads.

  Vivisection has now become as commonplace as slaughter, hanging or corporal punishment; many people who do this do so only because it is part of the profession they have chosen. They don't enjoy it, they just overcame their natural aversion and became indifferent to it, as people always become indifferent to what they do quite often. It is precisely the dangerous force of habit that makes it so difficult to convince humanity that any deep-rooted professional tradition originates in a hobby. When an everyday activity emerges from a passion, soon thousands of people will spend their entire lives doing it. In the same way, many people, without being cruel and disgusting, do cruel and disgusting things because the everyday occurrence that they encounter every day is inherently cruel and disgusting.
  George Bernard Shaw

  The only knowledge we are deprived of by prohibiting cruelty is first-hand knowledge of what cruelty is, that is, the very knowledge from which humane people would like to be spared.

  You determine whether an experiment is justified simply by showing it. practical benefit. The difference is not between useful and useless experiments, but between barbaric and civilized behavior. Vivisection - social evil because even if it advances the knowledge of mankind, it does so at the expense of human character
  - George Bernard Shaw

  The writer was asked:
  - What is the secret of your longevity, Mr. Shaw?
  - I like the vegetarian lifestyle; for half a century it has been the source of my youth. But by this I do not mean that everyone who eats cabbage and beets can equal a certain George Bernard Shaw. That would be overly optimistic...

  
  
  

  Doctor's quandary

  If you look from the point of view of the vivisector's ethics, you will have to not only allow experiments on people, but also make this the first duty of the vivisector. If you can sacrifice a guinea pig because it will reveal a little more, then why not sacrifice a human because it will reveal a lot more?

  The public approves of vivisection mainly because vivisectors claim that it brings great benefits to people. I do not admit a single thought that such arguments can be valid even if they are proven. But when the defender of this point of view begins with the assertion that in the name of science all ordinary ethical standards(including the duty to tell the truth) can be neglected, what should a reasonable person think about these arguments? I would rather lie under oath fifty times than torment an animal that licked my hands in a friendly manner. Even if I were torturing the dog, I, of course, would not have the nerve to turn around and ask how anyone could suspect such a worthy person of telling a lie. I hope that reasonable and humane people will answer this that worthy people do not behave unworthily even towards dogs.

  If it is impossible to obtain any knowledge without torturing the dog, it is necessary to do without this knowledge. - George Bernard Shaw

  Young woman: You know, I think this lunch is funny. You start your dinner with dessert. We are with snacks. This is probably normal; but I ate so much fruit, bread and everything that I no longer want meat.
  Priest: We will not offer you meat. We don't eat it.
  Young woman: How do you maintain your strength?
  Priest: They support themselves.
  "The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles", Prologue, Scene III

  Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends. It's horrible! not only by the suffering and death of animals, but by the fact that man needlessly suppresses the highest spiritual treasure in himself - sympathy and compassion for living beings like himself, trampling on his own feelings, becoming cruel.

  Dinner! Horrible! I will become the pretext for killing all these unfortunate animals, birds and fish! Thank you humbly.

  If now, instead of a banquet, there was a fast, say, a solemn three-day abstinence from corpses dedicated to me, I could at least pretend that I believe in the selflessness of this act. Bloody sacrifices are beyond my interests.

  We pray to God to illuminate our path:
  "Give us light, O all-good Lord!"
  The nightmare of war does not let us sleep,
  But on our teeth we have the flesh of dead animals.

  Darwin not only put evolution into a form that is accessible to everyone, he also made his own special contribution to it. Now the general concept of Evolution creates scientific basis for humanism, since it establishes the equality of all living beings,

  She attaches exactly the same meaning to the killing of an animal as to the killing of a person.

  This sense of the relatedness of all life forms is all that is needed not only to make evolutionary theory credible, but also to make it a source of inspiration. St. Anthony was fully prepared for the evolutionary theory when he preached to the fish, St. Francis when he called the birds “his little brothers.” Our vanity and snobbish perception of God as our earthly relative, this class division instead of the rock on which Equality was built, has led us to believe that God has created special conditions for us, placing us above other creatures. Evolution has knocked this arrogance off us; and now, when we can kill a flea without a shadow of remorse, we in any case know that we are killing our relative. It certainly shocks the flea that a creature that the almighty Heavenly Flea created solely as food for fleas kills the leaping king of nature with its huge and sharp fingernail; but not a single flea will be so stupid as to shout at all corners that, by killing fleas, Man is doing natural selection, as a result of which a flea develops, possessing such agility that no man can catch it, and such a strong constitution that insect poison has no more effect on it than strychnine on an elephant.

  
  
  

  Interesting patient

  Shaw was an ardent opponent of any experimentation on animals for scientific purposes, especially vivisection, considering it cruelty. But he was ready to provide himself as a living object. He joked with a serious look: “I had a weakness for unrecognized methods of treatment.” As soon as I learned about something “the latest” (in medicine - ed.), I immediately put forward my candidacy as a guinea pig. My fame made me an interesting patient, but my case was of no medical interest...

  
  
  
  

  Will

  Not only was Shaw's marriage extraordinary, but also Honeymoon. He was desperately unlucky: at first his leg hurt, he had to walk on crutches, then he “crashed down the stairs” - he broke his arm, and finally fell off his bicycle and sprained his ankle.

  The recovery took a long time. Doctors, not knowing how to help him, began to blame the vegetarian diet for everything. The resilient patient himself wrote about this complication:

  "Life is offered to me on the condition that I eat steaks. A crying family surrounds my bed, handing me patented meat extracts. But death is better than cannibalism.

  My will contains instructions for my funeral procession, in which there will be no funeral carriages, but there will be herds of bulls, rams, pigs, etc. poultry, as well as mobile aquariums with live fish, and all the creatures accompanying the coffin will have white bows tied in memory of the man who chose to die rather than eat his own kind. Apart from the procession going to Noah's Ark, it will be the most wonderful procession that people have ever seen."

  Scream Magazine, No. 4, 2001, pp. 54-56
  
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Bernard Show

  English George Bernard Shaw

  distinguished Irish playwright and novelist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and one of the most famous Irish literary figures; public figure (Fabian socialist, supporter of English writing reform)

  short biography

  - English playwright of Irish origin, one of the founders of the “drama of ideas”, writer, essayist, one of the reformers of theatrical art of the 20th century, after Shakespeare the second most popular author of plays in the English theater, Nobel Prize laureate in literature, Oscar winner .

  Born in Dublin, Ireland on July 26, 1856. The future writer’s childhood was overshadowed by his father’s addiction to alcohol and discord between his parents. Like all children, Bernard went to school, but he learned his main life lessons from the books he read and the music he listened to. After graduating from school in 1871, he began working in a company selling land plots. A year later he took the position of cashier, but four years later, having hated the job, he moved to London: his mother lived there, having divorced his father. From a young age, Shaw saw himself as a writer, but the articles he sent to various editors were not published. For 9 years, only 15 shillings - a fee for a single article - was earned by his writing, although during this period he wrote as many as 5 novels.

  In 1884, B. Shaw joined the Fabian Society and within a short time gained fame as a talented speaker. While visiting the reading room of the British Museum for the purpose of self-education, he met W. Archer and thanks to him he began to engage in journalism. After initially working as a freelance correspondent, Shaw worked as a music critic for six years and then worked for the Saturday Review as a theater critic for three and a half years. The reviews he wrote comprised a three-volume collection, “Our Theater of the Nineties,” published in 1932. In 1891, Shaw’s original creative manifesto was published - a lengthy article “The Quintessence of Ibsenism,” the author of which revealed a critical attitude towards contemporary aesthetics and sympathy for the drama that illuminated would be conflicts of a social nature.

  His debut in the field of drama was the plays “The Widower's House” and “Mrs. Warren's Profession” (1892 and 1893, respectively). They were intended to be staged in an independent theater, which was a closed club, so Shaw could afford to be bold in depicting aspects of life that his contemporary art usually avoided. These and other works were included in the “Unpleasant Plays” cycle. In the same year, “Pleasant Plays” was released, and “representatives” of this cycle began to penetrate the stage of large metropolitan theaters in the late 90s. The first huge success came from “The Devil’s Disciple,” written in 1897, which was part of the third cycle, “Plays for the Puritans.”

  The playwright's finest hour came in 1904, when the management of the Kord Theater changed and a number of his plays were included in the repertoire - in particular, Candida, Major Barbara, Man and Superman, etc. After successful productions, Shaw finally the reputation of an author who boldly deals with public morality and traditional ideas about history and subverts what was considered an axim was established. A contribution to the golden treasury of dramaturgy was the resounding success of Pygmalion (1913).

  During the First World War, Bernard Shaw had to listen to many unflattering words and direct insults addressed to him by spectators, fellow writers, newspapers and magazines. Nevertheless, he continued to write, and in 1917 a new stage began in his creative biography. The tragedy "Saint Joan", staged in 1924, returned B. Shaw to his former glory, and in 1925 he became the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and refused the monetary component.

  At the age of over 70 in the 30s. The show travels around the world, visiting India, South Africa, New Zealand, and the USA. He also visited the USSR in 1931, and in July of this year he personally met with Stalin. Being a socialist, Shaw sincerely welcomed the changes taking place in the country of the Soviets and became a supporter of Stalinism. After the Labor Party came to power, B. Shaw was offered a peerage and nobility, but he refused. He later agreed to be awarded the status of an honorary citizen of Dublin and one of the London counties.

  B. Shaw wrote until he was very old. He wrote his last plays, “Billions of Byant” and “Fictional Fables,” in 1948 and 1950. Remaining completely sane, the famous playwright died on November 2, 1950.

  Biography from Wikipedia

  Born in Dublin on July 26, 1856, he was the son of George Shaw, a grain merchant, and Lucinda Shaw, a professional singer. He had two sisters: Lucinda Frances, a theater singer, and Elinor Agnes, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 21.

  Shaw attended Wesley College in Dublin and grammar school. He received his secondary education in Dublin. At the age of eleven he was sent to a Protestant school, where he was, in his own words, the penultimate or last student. He called school the most harmful stage of his education: “It never occurred to me to prepare lessons or tell the truth to this universal enemy and executioner - the teacher.” The education system was more than once criticized by Shaw for focusing on mental rather than spiritual development. The author especially criticized the system of physical punishment at school. At the age of fifteen he became a clerk. The family did not have the means to send him to university, but his uncle’s connections helped him get a job at Townsend’s fairly well-known real estate agency. One of Shaw's duties was to collect rent from the inhabitants of the Dublin slums, and the sad impressions of these years were subsequently embodied in "Widower's Houses". He was, in all likelihood, a fairly capable clerk, although the monotony of the job bored him. He learned to keep accounting books neatly, and also to write in quite legible handwriting. Everything written in Shaw's handwriting (even in his advanced years) was easy and pleasant to read. This served Shaw well later, when he became a professional writer: typesetters did not know grief about his manuscripts. When Shaw was 16 years old, his mother ran away from home with her lover and daughters. Bernard decided to stay with his father in Dublin. He received an education and became an employee in a real estate office. He did this work for several years, although he did not like it.

  In 1876, Shaw went to his mother in London. The family greeted him very warmly. During this time he visited public libraries and museums. He began to study intensively in libraries and created his first works, and later wrote a newspaper column dedicated to music. However, his early novels did not become successful until 1885, when he became known as a creative critic.

  In the first half of the 1890s, he worked as a critic for the London World magazine, where he was replaced by Robert Hichens.

  At the same time, he became interested in social democratic ideas and joined the Fabian Society, whose goal was to establish socialism through peaceful means. It was in this society that he met his future wife, Charlotte Payne-Townshend, whom he married in 1898. Bernard Shaw had connections on the side.

  In recent years, the playwright lived in his own home and died at 94 from kidney failure. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered along with those of his wife.

  Creation

  Bernard Shaw's first play was presented in 1892. By the end of the decade, he had already become a famous playwright. He wrote sixty-three plays, as well as novels, criticism, essays, and more than 250,000 letters.

  Novels

  Shaw wrote five unsuccessful novels early in his career between 1879 and 1883. Later they were all published.

  Shaw's first published novel was The Profession of Cough Byron (1886), written in 1882. The main character of the novel is a wayward schoolboy who, together with his mother, emigrates to Australia, where he participates in fights for money. He returns to England for a boxing match. Here he falls in love with a smart and rich woman, Lydia Karya. This woman, attracted by animal magnetism, agrees to marriage, despite their different social status. Then it turns out that the main character is of noble birth and the heir to a large fortune. Thus, he becomes a deputy in Parliament and the married couple becomes an ordinary bourgeois family.

  The novel "Not a Social Socialist" was published in 1887. It starts out describing a girls' school, but then focuses on a poor worker who is actually hiding his fortune from his wife. He is also an active fighter for the promotion of socialism. From this point on, the entire novel focuses on socialist themes.

  The novel Love Among the Artists was written in 1881 and published in 1900 in the United States and in 1914 in England. In this novel, using Victorian society as an example, Shaw shows his views on art, romantic love and marriage.

  The Irrational Knot is a novel written in 1880 and published in 1905. In this novel, the author condemns hereditary status and insists on the nobility of workers. The institution of marriage is called into question by the example of a noble woman and a worker who became rich from the invention of the electric motor. Their marriage breaks down due to the family members' inability to find common interests.

  Shaw's first novel, Immaturity, written in 1879, was his last published novel. It describes the life and career of Robert Smith, an energetic young Londoner. Condemnation of alcoholism is the first message in the book, based on the author's family memories.

  Plays

  The show completely breaks with the prim Puritan morality that is still characteristic of a large part of the wealthy circles of English society. He calls things by their real names, considers it possible to depict any everyday phenomenon, and to a certain extent is a follower of naturalism.

  Shaw began working on the first play, The Widower's House, in 1885. After some time, the author gave up continuing work on it and completed it only in 1892. The play was presented at the Royal Theater in London on December 9, 1892. In this play, Shaw gave a picture of the life of the London proletarians, remarkable in its realism. The play begins with the fact that a young man is going to marry a girl whose father rents out slums to the poor, who pay their last money for them. The young man wants to give up both the marriage and the dowry, which he received through the hellish labor of the poor, but then he learns that his income is based on the labor of the poor. Very often, Shaw acts as a satirist, mercilessly ridiculing the ugly and vulgar aspects of English life, especially the life of bourgeois circles (“John Bull’s Other Island”, “Arms and the Man”, “How He Lied to Her Husband”, etc.).

  In the play Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893), a young girl learns that her mother receives income from brothels, and therefore leaves home to earn money by honest work.

  Bernard Shaw's plays, like those of Oscar Wilde, incorporate the sharp humor unique to Victorian playwrights. Shaw began to reform the theater by introducing new themes and inviting audiences to ponder moral, political, and economic issues. In this he is close to the dramaturgy of Ibsen with his realistic drama, which he used to solve social problems.

  As Shaw's experience and popularity increased, his plays became less focused on the reforms he advocated, but their entertainment value did not diminish. Works such as Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905) and The Doctor in a Dilemma (1906) show the mature views of the author, who was already 50 years old.

  Until the 1910s, Shaw was a fully formed playwright. New works such as Fanny's First Play (1911) and Pygmalion (1912) were well known to London audiences.

  In the most popular play, Pygmalion, based on a Greek myth in which a sculptor asks the gods to bring a statue to life, Pygmalion appears as professor of phonetics Higgins. His Galatea is street flower vendor Eliza Doolittle. The professor tries to correct the language of a girl who speaks Cockney. Thus, the girl becomes like a noble woman. By this, Shaw is trying to say that people are only different in appearance.

  Shaw's views changed after the First World War, which he disapproved of. His first work written after the war was the play Heartbreak House (1919). A new Shaw appeared in this play - the humor remained the same, but his faith in humanism was shaken.

  Shaw had previously supported a gradual transition to socialism, but now he saw a government led by a strongman. For him, dictatorship was obvious. At the end of his life, his hopes also died. Thus, in the play “Billions of Buyant” ( Buoyant Billions, 1946-48), his last play, he says that one should not rely on the masses, who act like a blind crowd and can choose people like Hitler as their rulers.

  In 1921, Shaw completed Back to Methuselah, a five-play pentalogy that begins in the Garden of Eden and ends a thousand years in the future. These plays argue that life is perfected through trial and error. Shaw himself considered these plays a masterpiece, but critics had a different opinion.

  After Methuselah, the play Saint Joan (1923) was written, which is considered one of his best works. The idea of ​​writing a work about Joan of Arc and her canonization appeared in 1920. The play gained worldwide fame and brought the author closer to the Nobel Prize (1925).

  Shaw also has plays in the psychological genre, sometimes even touching the field of melodrama (“Candida”, etc.).

  The author created plays until the end of his life, but only a few of them became as successful as his early works. The Apple Cart (1929) became the most famous play of this period. Later works, such as “Bitter But True,” “Broished” (1933), “The Millionairess” (1935) and “Geneva” (1935), did not receive widespread public recognition.

  Trip to the USSR

  

  From July 21 to July 31, 1931, Bernard Shaw visited the USSR, where on July 29 he had a personal meeting with Joseph Stalin. In addition to the capital, Shaw visited the outback - the commune named after. Lenin Tambov region, considered exemplary. Returning from the Soviet Union, Shaw said:

  “I am leaving the state of hope and returning to our Western countries - countries of despair... For me, an old man, it is a deep consolation, going to my grave, to know that world civilization will be saved... Here, in Russia, I am convinced that the new communist system is capable of leading humanity out of the modern crisis and saving it from complete anarchy and destruction.”

  In an interview given in Berlin on the way home, Shaw praised Stalin as a politician:

  "Stalin is a very nice man and truly the leader of the working class... Stalin is a giant, and all Westerners are pygmies."

  “In Russia there is no parliament or other nonsense like that. Russians are not as stupid as we are; It would be difficult for them to even imagine that there could be fools like us. Of course, the statesmen of Soviet Russia have not only a huge moral superiority over ours, but also a significant mental superiority.”

  Being a socialist in his political views, Bernard Shaw also became a supporter of Stalinism and the “other USSR.” Thus, in the preface to his play “Aground” (1933), he provides a theoretical basis for the OGPU repressions against the enemies of the people. In an open letter to the editor of the newspaper Manchester Guardian Bernard Shaw calls the information that appeared in the press about the famine in the USSR (1932-1933) a fake.

  In a letter to the newspaper Labor Monthly Bernard Shaw also openly sided with Stalin and Lysenko in the campaign against genetic scientists.