Creativity and a brief biography of Evgeny Zamyatin. Sunday story: Evgeny Zamyatin Creative biography and the artistic world of E

The novel "We" was written by the literary Mephistopheles,
a skeptic and at the same time a romantic, an idealist.
I. Sukhikh 1

"Heretic" in life and in literature. Yevgeny Zamyatin was a "heretic" and an eternal revolutionary both in life and in literature.

Zamyatin's childhood passed in the quiet provincial town of Lebedyan, Tambov province (now the Lipetsk region). Zamyatin wrote about his childhood years: “You will see a very lonely child, without peers, on the couch, belly down, above a book - or under the piano, and on the piano the mother plays Chopin - and county - windows with geraniums, in the middle of the street a pig is tied to a peg and chickens flutter in the dust. If you want geography, here it is: Lebedyan, the most Russian-Tambov, about which Tolstoy and Turgenev wrote ... "

The Russian province for many years became the main theme of the writer's work, as, for example, in the stories "Uyezdnoe" (1911), "In the middle of nowhere" (1914). In this regard, the American literary critic P. Fisher notes: “It seems to me that in general Zamyatin has only one subject - and, as I now understand, it is purely Russian. He is occupied with a certain central metaphor, its name is provincialism, omnipotent provincialism, spiritual and moral stagnation, in the terminology of Zamyatin himself - entropy ... He sees the world in some kind of provincial stupor ... And in this provincial, personality-suppressing world, heretics appear, and always these heretics are losers. They fail to riot…” 2

In 1893-1896, E. Zamyatin studied at the Lebedyansk gymnasium, where his father taught the Law of God. Education was continued in 1896 at the Voronezh gymnasium, from which the future writer graduated in 1902 with a gold medal (once later pawned in a St. Petersburg pawnshop for 25 rubles, but never redeemed).

Zamyatin recalled his gymnasium years: “A lot of loneliness, a lot of books, very early - Dostoevsky. I still remember shivering and burning cheeks - from "Netochka Nezvanova". Dostoevsky remained for a long time - older and even scarier; friend was Gogol (and much later - Anatole France).

“In the gymnasium, I got fives with pluses for essays, and it was not always easy to get along with mathematics. That must be why (out of stubbornness) I chose the most mathematical thing: the shipbuilding department of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic.

During his studies during the summer practice, the future writer traveled a lot: he visited Sevastopol, Nizhny Novgorod, Odessa, the Kama factories, sailed on a steamer to Constantinople, Smyrna, Beirut, Port Said, Jaffa, Alexandria, Jerusalem. In 1905, in Odessa, he witnessed the famous uprising on the battleship Potemkin, about which he later wrote in the story Three Days (1913). In 1905, in St. Petersburg, he took part in the revolutionary actions of the Bolsheviks, for which he was arrested and spent several months in solitary confinement. Exiled to Lebedyan, but illegally returned to St. Petersburg, from where he was again expelled in 1911, after graduating from the institute.

In 1908, E. Zamyatin graduated from the Polytechnic, received the specialty of a marine engineer, was left at the department of ship architecture, since 1911 as a teacher. The literary debut of Yevgeny Zamyatin took place in the fall of 1908 in the journal Education, where the story "One" was published.

Revolutions (both 1905 and 1917) were enthusiastically accepted. In 1906, in one of his letters, he wrote about the events of 1905: “And suddenly, the revolution shook me so well. It was felt that there was something strong, huge, like a tornado raising its head to the sky - for which it is worth living.

For the anti-war in spirit story "In the middle of nowhere" (1913), the heroes of which are not only the Far Eastern officers and soldiers, but also the whole "Rus, driven into the middle of nowhere", E. Zamyatin was brought to trial, and the issue of the "Zavety" magazine, in which the story was published, was confiscated. The critic A. Voronsky believed that the story "In the middle of nowhere" is a political artistic satire, which "makes clear much of what happened later, after 1914."

E. Zamyatin combined his writing with the work of a marine engineer and, in this capacity, continued his business trips around Russia. “Many work-related trips across Russia: the Volga up to Tsaritsyn, Astrakhan, Kama, the Donetsk region, the Caspian Sea, Arkhangelsk, Murman, the Caucasus, Crimea,” from E. Zamyatin’s autobiography.

In March 1916, Zamyatin was sent to England, where a number of icebreakers for Russia were built at the shipyards with his participation, including one of the largest - "Saint Alexander Nevsky" (after the revolution - "Lenin"). In England, a new period of the writer's work began. English impressions formed the basis of both numerous essays and the stories The Islanders (1917) and The Catcher of Men (1921). The story "The Islanders" (which is called the prototype of the novel "We") is dedicated to the image of the philistine world, the symbol of which in this work is vicar Gyuly.

Having learned about the revolution in Russia, Zamyatin returns home, hoping to see here the beginning of the revival of a new world and a new person: “A cheerful, terrible winter of 17-18, when everything shifted, floated somewhere into the unknown. Ships-houses, shots, searches, night shifts, house clubs. (From an autobiography.) But what the writer soon saw and felt in Russia, especially during the period of war communism, prompted him to critically treat post-revolutionary reality: it was the intolerance of the authorities, disregard for the creative person, for man, human life.

In the Soviet state, the features of a certain bureaucratic monster, Leviathan, were clearly visible; totalitarianism - that plague of the 20th century - used a person as a brick in state building, leveled a person, demanded unconditional and complete submission from him, turned him into a cog in one single well-oiled mechanism. Reality itself gave E. Zamyatin the material for his fantastic (although not so fantastic, if we recall the domestic and world history of the twentieth century) anti-utopian novel "We" (1920; first published in 1924 in English, then in 1926 - in Czech, in 1929 - in French, at home, the publication of the novel took place only in 1988). The pathos of this novel was the justification of a living personality, love, creativity, life itself, and not its mechanistic ersatz. It is not surprising that this first dystopian novel in world literature subsequently played a fatal role in the fate of the author - a resident not of the fantastic one described in the novel "We", but of the real Stalinist Unified State.

The novel "We" became the first in a series of European dystopian novels, such as Brave New World by O. Huxley, Animal Farm and 1984 by J. Orwell, Fahrenheit 451 by R. Bradbury and others.

E. Zamyatin was a mentor to young writers - members of the literary group "Serapion Brothers", which included K. Fedin, M. Zoshchenko, Vs. Ivanov, N. Tikhonov, L. Lunts and others. He taught at the Polytechnic Institute, read a course on the latest Russian literature at the Pedagogical Institute. Herzen and a course in the technique of artistic prose at the studio of the House of Arts, worked on the editorial board of World Literature, on the board of the All-Russian Union of Writers (elected chairman in 1928), in publishing houses, and edited several literary magazines.

In the early 1920s, the stories “Mamai” (1920) and “The Cave” (1921) appeared, sharply critical of the era of war communism in Bolshevik Russia, as well as a book about G. Wells “HG Wells” (1922).

In the 1920s, E. Zamyatin created a number of dramatic works: "The Society of Honorary Ringers", "Flea", "Atilla".

In 1929, E. Zamyatin for the novel "We" (simultaneously with B. Pilnyak, who was criticized for the story "Mahogany") was subjected to crushing criticism of the semi-official press, he was no longer printed, he could not work. The intercession of M. Gorky did not help. Under these conditions, the writer in June 1931 addressed a letter to Stalin, asking for permission to go abroad. In his letter, E. Zamyatin did not hide his views on the situation in the country, in particular, he wrote: “I know that I have a very uncomfortable habit of saying not what is beneficial at the moment, but what seems to me true. In particular, I have never hidden my attitude towards literary servility, servility and repainting: I believed - and continue to believe - that this humiliates both the writer and the revolution in the same way.

Living in France, E. Zamyatin remained a Soviet citizen, with a Soviet passport. The novel The Scourge of God was written abroad and published posthumously in Paris in 1938.

Buried in the suburbs of Paris.

Read also other articles on the work of E.I. Zamyatin and analysis of the novel "We":

• Biography of E.I. Zamyatin

1884 in the Lipetsk region. His father was a boyar and had a great influence on his son. At the same time, he was a priest and taught at local educational institutions. Mother, Maria Alexandrovna, was a very educated and intelligent woman. She admired classical literary works, was fond of playing the piano. Evgeny Zamyatin adopted many maternal qualities and followed in her footsteps. He thought the same way and was interested in the same things as his mother. Relations with the father were not worse. They understood each other perfectly, and Zamyatin always listened to his father's advice.

Zamyatin's biography testifies that the writer devoted his whole life to making his parents proud of him. He dreamed of conveying his thought to the people, he wanted his works to be read and thought about.

Childhood and youth of Evgeny Zamyatin

Initially, Zamyatin entered the Lebedyansk gymnasium, his father taught at this educational institution at that time. Then, at the age of 9, the writer was sent to the Voronezh gymnasium, which he successfully graduated with a gold medal in 1902. After studying at the gymnasium, he went to study at the Polytechnic Institute at the Faculty of Shipbuilding. Simultaneously with his studies at the institute, he was engaged in agitation at rallies. The institute itself was located in St. Petersburg, but during the summer practice, the writer began to travel to other cities. Upon his return, Zamyatin spoke out in support of the Bolsheviks and actively promoted the leftist movement. For this, he was taken under arrest, and for several months of his life he was in solitary confinement. During this difficult time, he learned a foreign language (English) and tried to write poetry. Zamyatin had a lot of free time, and he decided to use it wisely. After 2 months he was sent to Lebedyan, but Eugene secretly returned from there to St. Petersburg. Then he was sent back again. In 1911 he graduated from the Zamyatin Institute. A brief biography and his life story are worthy of descendants to know about it.

The author's first stories

Zamyatin's biography itself is very rich. Each period in his life brought him something new. Zamyatin was at the peak of his fame when his story "Uyezdnoye" was published in the magazine "Zavety". In this story, he wrote about the simple, routine life of Anfim Baryba, embittered and offended by the whole world. The work made a splash among readers.

Zamyatin believed that the style of his works was very close to neorealism, but despite this, he nevertheless turned his work into grotesque surrealism. Two years later, Zamyatin was summoned to the courtroom for his anti-war story "In the middle of nowhere." After this incident, the magazine in which his phenomenal work "Uyezdnoe" was published was confiscated. The well-known critic Voronsky expressed his opinion that, in essence, this story was a kind of political mockery, describing the events that took place after 1914.

Achievements of Evgeny Zamyatin

His biography can tell about the heights and falls of the author. Evgeny Zamyatin was an experienced marine engineer. He traveled a lot, constantly traveled around Russia in accordance with the service plan. In 1915, the story "North" was written, in which he described all his emotions left over from the trip to Solovki. Already in 1916, Zamyatin was engaged in the construction of Russian icebreakers in England. These were shipyard icebreakers from Newcastle, Glasgow and Sunderland. He oversaw the entire building process in London. The author described his memories of this period of his life in the stories "The Islanders" and "The Catcher of Men". England became a new impetus for the author to rethink his ideas and life positions. The trip had a strong impact on the writer's work, his work and life in general.

Zamyatin had great respect for the people who contributed to the development of modern society, but this did not stop him from paying attention to the shortcomings of the Western society. In 1917 Zamyatin arrived in Petrograd. The biography says that he became one of the most popular authors of Russian literature at that time. Readers appreciated his works, critics spoke well of them.

Zamyatin had an extremely close relationship with the literary group. A brief biography of the author describes that he began to lecture at the Polytechnic Institute, spoke about the news of Russian literature in and was engaged in the development of youth in many other universities. Despite the fact that he worked with students, Zamyatin did not believe that he was able to realize some kind of large-scale undertaking, he did not see the potential of a creative person in himself. Since everything that surrounded him seemed meaningless to Zamyatin, people ceased to be people for him.

In the stories "Mamai" and "The Cave" the author expressed his point of view on communism. This idea for him was equated with the evolutionary stage of human development, the movement of a caveman to a higher being. So thought Zamyatin. The biography also confirms this belief of his.

The main idea of ​​the proletarian utopia in the eyes of Zamyatin

Evgeny Zamyatin believed that it was necessary to explain to people that total changes in the modern world are based on the destruction of the moral qualities of a person. Against the background of such an opinion, Zamyatin published in America in 1920. His biography and work aroused interest in the West. Due to the fact that the work was written in Russian, the writer sent it to Grzhebin's Berlin printing company for its full translation into English. The novel was successfully translated, after which it was published in New York. Although the novel was not published in the USSR, critics reacted very harshly to it.

20s

In the 1920s, Zamyatin's biography was marked by the release of new works. He has been working hard all this time. Wrote a number of plays: "Society of Honorary Ringers", "Atilla", "Flea". These works were also not appreciated, since not a single critic understood his ideology of life in the Soviet Union.

Letter to Stalin

In 1931, Zamyatin realized that he had nothing more to do in the USSR, and went to Stalin to hand over his letter. The letter was about the possibility of moving abroad. He argued that the most terrible punishment that can only be for the author is a ban on creating. He had been contemplating his move for a long time. Despite all the contradictions, he loved his homeland very much and was a patriot at heart. So, he created the story "Rus", published back in 1923. It was a vivid proof of love for the motherland and an explanation of the point of view of such a great man as Yevgeny Zamyatin. The biography briefly reports that in 1932, with the help of Gorky, the author was still able to go to live in France.

Life in Paris

When Zamyatin arrived in Paris, he lived there with Soviet citizenship. He was engaged in the promotion of Russian literature, cinema, theater abroad. The main story written by Zamyatin abroad is "God's Scourge". It was the last work of the creator. He painted it in Paris in 1938. It was very difficult for Zamyatin to adapt to life in another country, the writer greatly missed his homeland, and all his thoughts focused on outside things, and not on creativity. He tried to give all the stories he wrote to the Russians, because he basically did not want to publish anything abroad. It was absolutely not his path. He carefully observed what was happening in parallel in Russia. Only after many years in the homeland they began to treat him differently. People realized what kind of author they had lost.

The last years of the life of Evgeny Zamyatin

Biography of Zamyatin is very confusing and unpredictable. No one knew that in the end everything would turn out this way for the writer. In May 1934, Zamyatin was admitted to the Writers' Union, although this happened in his absence. And in 1935, he was actively involved in work in the Anti-Fascist Congress for the Protection of Culture, together with the Soviet delegates.

Death of Evgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin

The author died on March 10, 1937. He was buried on the outskirts of Paris, in the cemetery in Thie. After these long difficult years, a belated recognition came when Evgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin died. His biography confirms that only after the death of the great writer, his works were really appreciated. He would be very proud that his efforts were not in vain, and the written works entered the history of world and domestic literature. He finally became famous. Unfortunately, the author himself did not live to see the day when the public was able to accept and understand his complex works.

Evgeny IvanovichZamyatin was born on February 1, 1884 in the city of Lebedyan, Tambov province (now the Lipetsk region) in the family of a poor nobleman. In addition to the impressions of the nature of those places with which many Russian writers were associated - Tolstoy, Turgenev, Bunin, Leskov, Sergeev-Tsensky - home education had a great influence on Yevgeny.He grew up under the piano: his mother is a good musician, he wrote in his Autobiography.ATfour yearsalready readGogol. Childhood - passed almost without comrades, comrades - books. The impressions of Lebedyan's life were described in the story Uyezdnoe and Alatyr.
In 1896 Zamyatin entered the gymnasiumVoronezh. After graduating with a gold medal, in 1902 he entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute forfacultyshipbuilding.

In his student years, during the first Russian revolution, he took part in the revolutionary movement.

Summer practice gave the future writer the opportunity to travel. Zamyatin visited Sevastopol, Nizhny Novgorod, Odessa, Kama factories, sailed on a steamer to Constantinople, Smyrna, Beirut, Port Said, Jaffa, Alexandria, Jerusalem. In 1905, while in Odessa, he witnessed an uprising on the battleship Potemkin, about which he later wrote in the story Three Days.

Returning to Petersburg,Zamyatintook part in the revolutionary activities of the Bolsheviks, was arrested (1906) spent several months in solitary confinement. Studied English and wrote poetry. Then he was exiled to Lebedyan, illegally returned to St. Petersburg, from whereafter graduationwas expelled (1911).

Walking along the line of greatest resistance was a life and creative credoZamyatin. My prosehe attributedto the literary direction, which he called neorealism. Stylistics of worksZamyatinpartly correlates with Remizov's "ornamental prose", however, hebrought this style to grotesque surrealism.

"In the middle of nowhere" (1913) - Pa story about the life of a small garrison on the Pacific coast, which describes the internal conflict of the characters, the conflict between the idea of ​​​​life, about what it should be, and the existing reality, its heroes are not only the Far Eastern officers and soldiers, but also the whole "Rus driven into the middle of nowhere".For an anti-war storyZamyatin was brought to trial, and the issue of the Zavety magazine, in which the story was published, was confiscated. The critic Voronsky considered the story "In the middle of nowhere" a politically artistic satire, which "makes clear much of what happened later, after 1914."

As a highly qualified engineer, Zamyatin continued his business trips around Russia. Impressions from travels to Kem, Solovki are reflected in the story "North" (1915 ).
In 1916, Zamyatin was sent to England to participate in the constructionthe agency of Russian icebreakers at the shipyards of Newcastle, Glasgow, Sunderland. He was one of the main designers of the icebreaker "Saint Alexander Nevsky" (after the October Revolution - "Lenin"). English impressions formed the basis of both the essays and the stories The Islanders (1917) and The Catcher of Men (1921). Respect for people who ensured a high level of development of civilization did not prevent the writer from seeing the shortcomings of the Western social order. The story "Islanders" is dedicated to the depiction of total philistinism in a technocratic society, the symbol of which is Vicar Gyuly.

In 1917 Zamyatin returned to Petrograd and became one of the most prominent figures in Russian literary life. He influenced the literary group "Serapion Brothers", with which he was creatively close, taught at the Polytechnic Institute, read a course on the latest Russian literature at the Pedagogical Institute. Herzen and a course in the technique of artistic prose at the studio of the House of Arts, worked on the editorial board of World Literature, on the board of the All-Russian Union of Writers, in the publishing houses of Grzhebin and Alkonost, and edited several literary magazines. Zamyatin was skeptical of "all sorts of global undertakings" that arose against the backdrop of the destruction of civilized life. Trips around the Tambov, Vologda, Pskov provinces are not bornor historical optimism. In the stories "Mamai" (1920), "The Cave" (1921), he compared the era of war communism with the prehistoric cave period of human development.
Observations on a totalitarian society were artistically embodied in the fantastic dystopian novel We (1920). The novel was conceived as a parody of a utopia written by the ideologists of Proletkult Bogdanov and Gastev, the main idea of ​​which was proclaimed a global reorganization of the world based on the “destruction of the soul and feeling of love in a person.” The action of the novel "We" takes place in the United State, isolated from the world and headed by the Benefactor. The hero is an engineer D-503, the creator of a structure for man's domination of space.The fate of a hero who sees his god in the Benefactor and treats the laws of the United State as God's commandments is comparable tofate of Adam. Living in harmony with himself and God, he loses his peace and awaits severe punishment when he learns the forbidden taste of freedom, passion and knowledge.Existence in the United State is rationalized, residents are completely deprived of the right to privacy, love is reduced to satisfying a physiological need. D-503's attempt to love a woman leads him to betrayal, and his beloved to death. The narrative manner in which the novel is written differs markedly from the style of previous works: languageZamyatinextremely simple, the metaphors are rationalistic in nature, the text is replete with technical terms. We is the forerunner of dystopian novels - Huxley's Brave New World, Animal Farm and Orwell's 1984, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451...

Zamyatin sent the manuscript "We" to the Berlin branch of the Grzhebin publishing house. In 1924 the text was translated into English and published in New York. Despite the lack of publications in the USSR, the novel was ideologically defeated by Soviet critics who read it in manuscript. Furmanov saw in it "an evil pamphlet-utopia about the kingdom of communism, where everything is equalized, castrated." Others thought that Zamyatin was ready to take the path of an inhabitant who grumbles about the revolution. In 1929, the play Zamyat was removed from the repertoire of the Moscow Art Theaterina "Flea" (1925, staged by Levsha Leskov), the staging of his tragedy Atilla (1928) was prohibited. The play about the persecution of heretics "Fires of St. Dominic" (1923) was not staged either.

The first complete edition of the novel “We” in Russian was published in 1952 in New York, in Russia only in 1988. In the novel “We”, a conditional, fantastic plot acquires authenticity, since it is simultaneously projected onto ancient myths, biblical stories. Evgeny Zamyatin creates his own myth about the fate of mankind, about the state of modern society, about the spiritual and mental state of a person of the 20th century.

Illustration for Zamyatin's novel "We"

The plot of the story"Flood"served as a genuine flood in Leningrad in the autumn of 1924. However, the action clearly covers the time of the first post-revolutionaryth years. The fate of the inhabitants of Vasilyevsky Island was refracted by tragic historical events that turned people's souls upside down, changed their ideas about good and evil. Zamyatin touches on the main facets of life: the instinct of procreation, motherhood, love.

In 1931, realizing the futility of further existence in the USSR, Zamyatin wrote to Stalin asking for permission to travel abroad, explaining that for him “as a writer, it is a death sentence to be deprived of the opportunity to write”:

“I know that it will be very difficult for me abroad too, because I cannot be there in the reactionary camp - this is quite convincingly evidenced by my past (belonging to the RSDLP (b) in tsarist times, at the same time in prison, twice exile, attraction to court during the war for an anti-militarist story). I know that if here, by virtue of my habit of writing according to my conscience, and not on command, I was declared right, then sooner or later, for the same reason, I will probably be declared a Bolshevik. But even under the most difficult conditions there I will not be sentenced to silence, there I will be able to write and publish - even if not in Russian. If by circumstances I am brought to the impossibility (I hope, temporarily) of being a Russian writer, perhaps I will be able, as the Pole Joseph Conrad did, to become an English writer for a while, especially since I have already written about England in Russian (the satirical story "Islanders" etc.), and writing in English is a little more difficult for me than in Russian.

In November 1931, Zamyatin and his wife went abroad. They wanted to go to America: Cecile deMille called the screenwriter for a new picture, but the Hollywood career did not take place. Having circled around Europe (Riga, Berlin, Prague, the south of France), the Zamyatin couple settled in Paris.

In exile, Zamyatin continued the "amphibious",doublelife. He was not disingenuous when he asked permission for a temporary departure, as he did not intend to stay abroad. Yevgeny Ivanovich retained Soviet citizenship, never published in emigre publications. At first, Zamyatin even sent money to Russia to pay for his Leningrad apartment.

Nina Berberova recalled: “He did not know anyone, did not consider himself an emigrant and lived in the hope of returning home as soon as possible. I don’t think he believed that he would live to see this, but he was too scared to finallyrefusefrom hope. He was feignedly optimistic, saying that it was necessary to “wait out”, “sit quietly”, thatthis tacticknowsome animals and insects: do not fight, but hide. To live later."

The waiting tactic was somewhat successful. For "good behavior", the Soviet authorities gradually softened their attitude towards the writer. In May 1934, Zamyatin was admitted in absentia to the newly formed Union of Writers of the USSR (an unprecedented case), and in 1935 heas part of the Soviet delegationtook part in the Anti-Fascist Congress for the Protection of Culture.

In Paris, where there was no Soviet censorship, where there was no need to be torn between writing, teaching, editorial and engineering work, Zamyatin's creative activity declined sharply. To earn money, he wrote scripts: Anna Karenina (never staged), At the Bottom. The screen version of Gorky's play, where the action was transferred to a French rooming house (directed by Jean Renoir), was a success. The Brussels production of Flea went unnoticed. Zamyatin remade the play about Attila into the story "The Scourge of God" - ethat last work. Complete itEvgeny Zamyatindid not have time. The unfinished chapters unfold a colorful canvas of the capital of the Roman Empire in 405 AD.Written texts include two generations of Roman emperors.The events of the novel about Attila, who as a child was a hostage of the Roman Empire, were supposed to cover half a century of world history.Both the story "Scourge of God" and the collection of memoirs "Faces" were published posthumously.

Evgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin died on March 10, 1937 from angina pectoris that had tormented him for many years. Marina Tsvetaeva described the funeral: "It was terrible, squanderingly poor - both in people and in flowers ... I have a wild resentment for him." Remizov echoes her: “Zamiatin died of angina pectoris by the death of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin ... hunted, looking around, with a sealed heart and sealed lips ...”

He later wrote: “He grew up under the piano: his mother is a good musician,” he wrote in his autobiography. - Gogol at four - already read. Childhood - almost without comrades: comrades - books.

As the writer noted in his autobiography, he was born into a family of a priest "among the fields of Tambov, in the glorious cheaters, gypsies, horse fairs and the strongest Russian language of Lebedyan - the very one that Tolstoy and Turgenev wrote about." After graduating from the Voronezh gymnasium with a gold medal, Zamyatin became a student at the shipbuilding department of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. Practice at various factories and on the ship "Russia", on which the future writer sailed from Odessa to Alexandria, gave him a variety of impressions.

Zamyatin at the age of two.

Zamyatin took part in the revolutionary events of 1905 on the side of the Bolsheviks, after which he was arrested and sent to his native places. When, some time later, Zamyatin returned to St. Petersburg, he had to live in a semi-legal position. However, in 1908 he graduated from the Polytechnic Institute, and remained at the Department of Naval Architecture as a teacher.

During three years of hard work, drawings, trips to construction sites and articles in special magazines alternated with the writing of the first literary works. Zamyatin's first story appeared in 1908, but the writer himself considered the year 1911 to be the beginning of his professional activity, when his story "Uyezdnoe" was published, which immediately became a huge success with readers, and critics called this work a literary event.

Zamyatin became close to the Zavetov group, which included writers A. Remizov and M. Prishvin. Zamyatin began to develop his own "ornamental" style - his descriptions were elegant and layered: "The sun, sand, black-haired Arabs, sand, camels, sand, cacti. Somewhere else, not Arabs, but Turks, and again - the sun, camels, sand" - from the work "Three Days", published in 1913. Moreover, the southern description in this work preceded the story of the events on the battleship Potemkin. Such detachment of the narrative was already characteristic of the prose of the 1920s. V. Shklovsky is considered its ancestor. But it existed in Russian literature much earlier.

Another feature of Zamyatin's prose of that time was a pronounced ethnographicism; it is no coincidence that he was also called a writer-bytovik. At this time, a satirical tone appeared in Zamyatin's works. He depicted the world of the Russian provinces, the county philistinism, which before him and in parallel with him was portrayed by Gorky in the story "The Town of Okurov" and Tolstoy in "Zavolzhye". Criticism wrote about him: “In the voice of the young artist, first of all and loudest of all, pain for Russia is heard. This is the main motive of his work, and from all the pages of Zamyatin’s few works, the indignant face of our homeland emerges brightly and convexly - the sick confusion of the Russian “unlucky” soul, the nightmarish and disastrous disorder of our being and right next to it is a thirst for achievement and a passionate search for truth ... »

In 1914 Zamyatin's anti-war story "In the middle of nowhere" was published in the magazine "Zavety", which caused a great public outcry. As a result, the editors of the journal and the author himself were brought to trial. Zamyatin was acquitted, and in 1916 he went on a business trip to England. By that time, the writer had established himself as a skilled naval engineer-architect. In his own words, he was possessed by two feelings, "two wives" - literature and shipbuilding. In England, he worked at factories in Glasgow, Newcastle, Sunderland, Southshields, developed drawings of the icebreakers St. Alexander Nevsky (after the revolution - Lenin), Svyatogor (later - Krasin), Minin, Pozharsky , "Ilya Muromets". They were built with his direct participation.

The story "The Islanders" written by him again caused a scandal, since Zamyatin portrayed England in a satirical form. He skillfully used various artistic techniques - allegory and reminiscence, irony and associative parallels. Life in England convinced Zamyatin that technical progress in isolation from morality, spiritual development not only does not contribute to the improvement of the human race, but threatens to supplant the human in a person.

After the October Revolution, Zamyatin organized various literary circles, and together with Gumilyov taught literary technique to novice writers. However, in his works and articles, the writer opposed the emerging totalitarian system, where real art was not needed. The stories “The Cave” and “Mamai” in 1920, “Atilla” in 1928 became a kind of manifesto for the writer. In them, he talked about the initial period of communism as a return to the era of primitive people, where barbaric relations reign. But the real scandal erupted after the publication of the novel "We". The revolutionary authorities took this work of Zamyatin as a caricature of the communist society of the future. The novel was immediately published in Czech, English and French, but it was released in Russia only in 1988. In it, Zamyatin combined Russian and European traditions, using the ideas of Fyodor Dostoevsky about the Benefactor and G. Wells about the future world of machines, where the human principle is relegated to the background.

The renewal of form also manifested itself in the plays created by Zamyatin in the 1920s. The most interesting of them is the dramatic performance of "Flea", created by the playwright based on the tale of N. Leskov "Lefty". It was a success at the Moscow Art Theatre, and the scenery for the performance was made by B. Kustodiev.

The situation around Zamyatin was tense, they could not forgive him for his independence, sharp and truthful language. He did not know how and could not speak and write lies. The creative fate of Yevgeny Zamyatin serves as a clear example of how a Russian writer became the founder of a whole trend in literature, but not in his homeland, but in European culture. Moreover, this happened unexpectedly not only for himself, but also for those around him. Zamyatin was one of those writers whose work was largely determined by social motives, but by no means limited to them. He entered Russian culture as an excellent literary critic who developed his own philological concept.

In his internal review of a one-volume collection of selected works by Zamyatin, V. Shklovsky remarked: "Without him, our literature would be incomplete."

About Yevgeny Zamyatin, a documentary film “The Path of Paradoxes. Evgeny Zamyatin.

Your browser does not support the video/audio tag.

Text prepared by Andrey Goncharov

YURI ANNENKOV.

From the book of memoirs "DIARY OF MY MEETINGS. A cycle of tragedies"

With Evgeny Zamyatin, my greatest friend, I first met in St. Petersburg, in 1917. The significance of Zamyatin in shaping the young Russian literature of the first years of the Soviet period is enormous. He was organized in Petrograd, in the House of Arts, a class of artistic prose. In this literary studio, under the influence of Zamyatin, the writing group of the "Serapion Brothers" united and formed: Lev Lunts, Mikhail Slonimsky, Nikolai Nikitin, Vsevolod Ivanov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, and also - indirectly - Boris Pilnyak, Konstantin Fedin and Isaac Babel. Evgeny Zamyatin was tireless and turned the House of Arts into a kind of literary academy. The number of lectures read by Zamyatin in his class, lectures accompanied by the reading of the works of the "Serapion Brothers" and mutual discussion of literary problems, and, of course, - above all, problems of literary form - was innumerable. These lectures are of undoubted interest. They are not pedantic.

“From the very beginning, I renounce the posted title of my course. It’s impossible to teach how to write stories or novels. What will we do then? - you ask. - Isn’t it better to go home? I will answer: no. We still have something "There are great arts and small arts, there is artistic creativity and artistic craft. Small art, artistic craft - certainly enters, as an integral part, into great. Beethoven, in order to write the Moonlight Sonata, had to first learn the laws of melodies, harmonies, counterpunctures ", i.e., to study the musical technique of compositions, which belongs to the field of artistic craft. And Byron, in order to write "Childe Harold", had to study the technique of versification. Similarly, one who wants to devote himself to creative activity in the field of artistic prose, - you must first study the technique of artistic prose," Zamyatin wrote. "Melody - in a musical phrase is carried out: 1) by its rhythmic construction; 2) by the construction of harmonic elements in a certain key; and 3) by a sequence in changing the strength of sound," continued Zamyatin.

We will deal, first of all, with the question of constructing whole phrases in a certain key, with what is usually called instrumentation in the artistic word... The instrumentation of whole phrases for certain sounds or combinations of sounds pursues not so much harmonic goals as pictorial goals. Every sound of a human voice, every letter in itself evokes certain ideas in a person, creates sound images. I am far from assigning a strictly defined semantic or color meaning to each sound. But - R - clearly tells me something loud, bright, red, hot, fast. L - about something pale, blue, cold, smooth, light. Sound N - about something tender, about snow, sky, night ... Sounds D and T - about something stuffy, heavy, about fog, about darkness, about musty. The sound M is about sweet, soft, about mother, about the sea. With A - latitude, distance, ocean, haze, scope are associated. C O - high, deep, sea, bosom. C I - close, low, squeezing, etc.".

Speaking about Gumilyov and Zamyatin, Nikolai Otsup wrote: “It would hardly be a mistake to call the beginning of the third literary decade in Russia a studio one... It was good for novice poets: they had an indispensable, natural teacher - Gumilyov. But how can future prose writers manage without their teacher? If Zamyatin had not been in Petersburg at that time, he would have had to be invented. Zamyatin and Gumilyov are almost the same age. The first was born in 1885, the second a year later. The revolution caught both of them abroad. Gumilyov was sent to Paris on missions of a military nature, Zamyatin - to England, to observe the construction of the icebreaker "Alexander Nevsky" later "Lenin"). Both returned to Russia in the fall of 1917. There is something in common in their looks, in their attitude to literature. Gumilyov was a man of rare discipline, concentrated will, excerpts. Zamyatin's character is attractive for the same qualities. Each of them checked harmony with algebra. Both of them knew for sure that mastery is achieved by hard work. "

Zamyatin, first of all, is Zamyatin's smile, permanent, indelible. He smiled even in the most difficult moments of his life. His friendliness was unchanged. I spent a happy month of summer vacation with him in 1921, in a remote village on the banks of the Sheksna. Abandoned hut, rented to us by the local council. From morning until noon we lay on the warm sandy bank of the beautiful river. After breakfast - long walks among wild sunflowers, wild strawberries, thin-legged honey mushrooms and - then - again the sandy shore of Sheksna, the birthplace of the most delicious sterlet. Volga sterlet - second grade.

Then - evening. Bright as noon. Then - night. White Nights. There was no time to sleep. We must have wandered for hundreds of versts without meeting a single wolf, bear, or fox. Only - rare, shy hares and wild strawberries, lingonberries, blueberries, cranberries, which we put handfuls in our mouths. Sometimes loud-mouthed wild ducks flew over Sheksna ... However, we worked a lot, sitting in the bushes or lying in the grass: Zamyatin - with school notebooks, I - with a drawing album. Zamyatin "cleaned up", as he said, his novel "We", and prepared translations of either Wells or Thackeray. I sketched landscapes, peasants, birds, cows.

By six o'clock in the evening, Lyudmila Nikolaevna, Zamyatin's wife, was waiting for us for dinner, which was extremely modest, although sometimes the sterlet we caught on the sly appeared on the menu. Later, - closer to the white night - linden tea with saccharin.

With my family.

Lyudmila Nikolaevna, charming and sociable in Russian, was not only Zamyatin's faithful companion. She was an assistant and, in a sense, even a collaborator of her husband in his literary works. Zamyatin always gave her the initial drafts of his manuscripts to read, and she invariably made comments that seemed necessary to her, which sometimes led the writer to some formal changes in the text. Then, Lyudmila Nikolaevna, an excellent dactylographer, rewrote the final text on a typewriter.

My writing, - Zamyatin joked, - is our joint work.

To some extent, this joke corresponded to reality. But Lyudmila Nikolaevna every time in such cases with sincere shyness refuted this, calling herself simply a "typewriter", or - smiling and waving her hand, left the room. One evening, in a hut, Zamyatin read to me one of the first pages of the novel "We": "In measured rows, four by four, enthusiastically beating time, there were numbers - hundreds, thousands of numbers ... with gold plaques on the chest - the state number of each and each ... To my left is 0-90, ... to my right - two unfamiliar numbers.

I did not like the word "numer", which, in my opinion, seemed somewhat vulgar: this is how this word was pronounced in Russia by some small provincial clerical bureaucrats and did not sound Russian.

Why is it a number and not a number?

So, after all, this is not a Russian word, - Zamyatin answered, - it is not necessary to distort. In Latin - numenis; in Italian - numero; in French - numero; in English - number; in German - Nummer ... Where is Russian here? Where is the "O"? Let's open the Russian dictionary, I have a Russian-English one here.

When translating Thackeray (or Wells), Zamyatin always had a Russian-English dictionary at hand.

Well, let's see where the Russian roots are here, - said Zamyatin and began to read, word by word, from the letter "A", - lampshade, abbot, aberration, paragraph, subscription, abortion, abracadabra, apricot, absolutism, absurdity, avant-garde , outpost, proscenium, gamble, accident, August, august ... Stop! I came across: wow! Next: aurora, autobiography, autograph, autocracy, automaton, car, self-portrait, author, authority, agitator, agent, agony, adept, lawyer, address, academy, watercolor, accompaniment, acrobat, axiom, act, actor, actress... Stop! stumbled upon a shark! .. Next: accuracy, acoustics, midwife, accent, action, algebra, alabaster, alcohol, allegory, alley ... Stop: diamond ... Next: alphabet, alchemy ... Stop: greed and scarlet. .. Next: album, almanac, aluminum, amazon, amalgam, barn, ambition, pulpit, amen, ammonia, amnesty, amputation, amulet, amphitheater, analysis, analogy, pineapple, anarchy, anathema, engagement, angel, anecdote, anise, Anna, anomaly, antagonism, antiques, antipathy, antipode, antichrist, antique, Anton, intermission, anthracite, anthropology, anchovy, apathy, orange, apocalypse, apocrypha, apology, apoplexy, apostle, apostrophe, apparatus, appeal, appetite, applause, april, pharmacy, arap, watermelon, argument, rent, areopagus, arrest, aristocracy, arithmetic, aria, arch, harlequin, army, aroma, rearguard, arsenal, artel, artery, artillery, artist, harp, archangel, archive, archipelago, architecture, archbishop, ascetic, banknote, assistant, astronomy, asphalt, attack, atheism, atlas, athlete, atmosphere, ato m ... Finally: ay! .. atem, audience, audience, auction, poster, oh, aerolite ... In general - nonsense, - Zamyatin shouted, - have you seen almonds? Even a watermelon, damn it, is not Russian! True, the French "arbouse" is more like a strawberry, but the word already exists, only the meaning was confused. Even our daily "abracadabra", like our "nonsense", with the letter "G" - and those are not ours. What is there! Even Anton (Chekhov)! Even Arkashka (Schastlivtsev), even Akaki (Akakievich), even Alexei (Tolstoy), even Alexander (Pushkin), and so on - starting with Adam! Even Anna (Karenina) is not ours! And, therefore, like all derivatives - even our local milkmaid Annushka, Anyutka - is not ours! Even Annensky (Innokenty)! Even - Yuri Annenkov? You come, probably, neither give nor take - from Anne, Queen of France in the thousand fifties. However, this French Anna was also Annushka, the daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, the son of Vladimir - the Red Sun ... But still, from the letter "A" to us, Russians, only "maybe", "ay! “Altyn”, “shark” (God forbid!), “diamond”, which we can’t afford, and, it seems, “hell”. However, I’m not sure about our hell either: he is also a foreigner, born of Marxism .. And now - the letter "B": luggage, base, bazaar, sideburns, bacterium, ball, balance, ballerina, ballet, balcony, ballad, ballot, bamboo, banality, banana, bandit, bank, banquet, banker, bankrupt, bath , barrack, bas-relief, baritone, barque, barometer, barricade, barrier, bass, pool, battalion, battery, lawn, bacillus, fiction, flat, gasoline, concrete, bibliography, library, bivouac, can, ticket, billiards, binoculars, biography , biology, biplane, bis, biscuit, beefsteak, form, blockade, notebook, blond, boycott, glass, bomb, bombard, board, botany, shoe, bracelet, brigade, diamond, bronze, bronchitis, brooch, brochure, feta cheese, brunet , bouquet, second-hand book dealer, boulevard, broth, bourgeois, sandwich, bud, bottle, sideboard, budget, bulletin, bureau, bureaucrat, bust... And so on... Basta! What a mess! Salade russe, which in Russia is called Salade Olivier is brewed. Zamyatin slammed the dictionary shut.

I agree, - I said, - but about the "number" I remain of my opinion. Otherwise, how to deal with the saying: "As in the room, so he died?" “Very simple,” Zamyatin replied. - "As in number, and died." Only and everything.

He pushed the dictionary aside and we started on linden tea with saccharin. As I poured tea into a glass, I suddenly remembered Dostoevsky's phrase in The Idiot, that Prince Myshkin, in the tavern on Liteinaya, was "immediately given a number," and that at Gogol's, in Dead Souls, Chichikov, stopping at hotel, went up to his "room".

Well, you see, - Zamyatin laughed, - there is no need to argue with the classics.

month in the village. And even - not in the village itself, but somewhere on the edge of it, in a lonely hut, on the banks of the Sheksna. From the Sheksna sun we all turned brown. A happy month full of singing, chirping birds, forest scents. But the month quickly passed, and we had to leave Sheksna and return to St. Petersburg. Zamyatin occupied an apartment on Mokhovaya Street, in a house owned by the World Literature publishing house (whose books were published with the publisher's mark of my work). Zamyatin was a member of the Editorial Council there, together with M. Gorky, A.N. Tikhonov, A.L. Volynsky and K.I. Chukovsky. But in the same year, together with A.A. Blok, A.L. Volynsky, M. Gorky, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, A.N. Tikhonov and K.I. Chukovsky, Zamyatin was also elected a member of the Literary Department "House of Arts" and, together with M. Dobuzhinsky, N. Radlov, K. Chukovsky and V. Shcherbatov - to the Editorial Board of the magazine "House of Arts". In addition, together with A. Blok, A. Volynsky, N. M. Volkovysk, A. V. Ganzen, M. Gorky, P. K. Guber, L. Ya. Shishkov, V. B. Shklovsky and K. Chukovsky - Zamyatin was then a member of the Board of the Writers' Union. A year earlier, the House of Writers announced a competition for novice fiction writers. The jury: V.A.Azov, A.V.Amfiteatrov, A.Volynsky, V.Ya.Iretsky, A.M.Redko, B.M. the very center of the literary life of Russia in those years.

Zamyatin's skillfully written "The Tale of Monk Erasmus" could be mistaken for the work of Archpriest Avvakum. Zamyatin's language is always Zamyatin's, but at the same time, it is always different. This is the peculiarity and wealth of Zamyatin as a writer. For him, language is a form of expression, and this form determines and refines the content. If Zamyatin writes about peasants, about the countryside, he writes in peasant language. If Zamyatin writes about the petty urban bourgeoisie, he writes in the language of an office clerk or a grocer. If he writes about foreigners, he uses the properties and even shortcomings of the translated style, its phonetics, its construction, as the guiding melody of the narrative. If Zamyatin writes about a flight to the moon, he writes in the language of a scientific astronomer, engineer, or in the language of mathematical formulas. But in all cases, Zamyatin's language, which breaks with the Russian literary tradition, remains very figurative and, at the same time, restrained, tested in every expression.

We have heard the language of a misconstrued village, for example, in the story "The word is given to Comrade Churygin", written in 1926 and published for the first time in the almanac "Circle", in Moscow, in 1927. Zamyatin is absent in this story: the story is written in the direct speech of the peasant Churygin and reveals Zamyatin's extremely sensitive ear for the language of his chosen speaker. Churygin tells how the soldier Yegor, the hero of the First World War, awarded the St. George Cross, returning home, informed his neighbors in his hut: it is quite known that now, under the tsar, there is a peasant under the name of Grigory Efimych above all the ministers, and he will show them all Kuz'kin's mother.

“Here,” Churygin continues, “as our people heard it, “well, they came to their senses and shout with pleasure that now, of course, both the war and the masters are the end and the full result, and we put everything on Grigory Efimych very much, how he is in power, our man ... I immediately began to pulse from this news ... "And so on. I do not think that Rasputin was worthy of Zamyatin's story, but in itself, especially philologically, the story is magnificent. Now it’s different: “It’s dark. The door to the next room is not closed tightly. Through the door gap there is a streak of light on the ceiling: they are walking with a lamp, something has happened. , and thousands of doors, lamps rushing about, stripes rushing along the ceiling ... London floated - no matter where. Light columns of Druidic temples - yesterday only factory pipes. huge black swans - cranes: now they will dive to the bottom for prey. Frightened, ringing golden letters splashed towards the sun: "Rolls-Royce, auto" - and went out ... Something happened. The black sky over London - cracked into pieces: white triangles, squares, lines - silent, geometric nonsense of searchlights ... And now swept out by an instant plague - an empty, geometric city: silent domes, pyramids, circles, arcs, towers, battlements.

It's from The Catcher of Men. Nothing like Churigin, a kind of verbal cubism.

Now - from the novel "We": "Here's what: imagine a square, a living, beautiful square. And he needs to tell about himself, about his life. You see, it would least occur to a square to say that he has all four the angles are equal. Here I am in this square position ... For me it is the equality of four angles, but for you it may be cleaner than Newton's binomial."

Here already - Malevich's Suprematism, his famous black square on a white background, thundered all over the world, And yet - the beginning from the article "On Synthetism", dedicated to my artistic work:

Here is the language of an engineer, a builder, a mathematician.

The most curious thing was that Zamyatin turned this form of his language precisely against mathematics, against organization, against the "iron logic" of the exact sciences. Being a shipbuilding engineer, that is, a person accustomed to communicating with the world of infallible, predetermined schemes, he did not suffer, however, from the "childhood illness" of the deification of schematics, and therefore it became increasingly difficult for Zamyatin to live under the conditions of the Soviet regime built on planning "and rationalization.

In essence, Zamyatin's fault in relation to the Soviet regime consisted only in the fact that he did not beat the state drum, did not "equal", headlong, but continued to think independently and did not consider it necessary to hide it. Zamyatin argued that human life, the life of mankind, cannot be artificially rebuilt according to programs and blueprints, like a transatlantic steamer, because in a person, in addition to his material, physical properties and needs, there is also an irrational principle that cannot be either accurately dosed or accurately accounted for, as a result, sooner or later, schemes and drawings will be blown up, which the history of mankind has proven many times. I, who, unlike Zamyatin, had nothing to do with the exact sciences, objected to him:

Science and technology, which cognize, reveal and organize life, lead to its simplification. Science and technology is a forced march of regiments. Disorderly, chaotic, anarchic, slovenly, decay and collapse - irritate a person. He calls deviation from norms "madness". The disciplined, logical mind he calls the "beautiful" mind.

You are wrong in the main, - answered Zamyatin, - there will be a time - it will certainly come - when humanity reaches a certain limit in the development of technology, a time when humanity will be freed from labor, because defeated nature will work for man, redesigned into machines, in trained energy. All barriers will be removed, on earth and in space, everything impossible will become possible. Then humanity will be freed from its age-old curse - the labor necessary to fight nature, and will return to free labor, to labor-pleasure. Art is only just being born, despite the existence of Phidias and Praxiteles, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky, Goethe and Pushkin. The art of our era is only a forerunner, only a weak preface to art. True art will come in the era of great rest, when nature will be finally conquered by man.

No, - I protested, - this will not happen, because there is no limit to the cognitive aspirations of man. Progress knows no limit. It is impossible to satisfy the needs of man, because his needs will be born after inventions. My first delight in early childhood was my first panties with pockets. I did not experience hardships in the absence of pockets: at that age I did not need them. But when the pockets were sewn on, I spent whole days filling them with wood chips, empty boxes and Nanny Natalya's hairpins: I had a need for pockets. While we were traveling in dormes, none of us wanted to rush in one day from London to Paris. We quietly lost a week and a half on this. Now we experience disaster if, after breakfast in London, we do not have time to fly to the meeting in Paris by five o'clock in the afternoon. When a laboratory vial gives birth to a living person, it will become a direct necessity for us to order by telephone a child of such and such a character, such and such a sex and color, by such and such a day and hour. And now, when the nature that surrounds us finally turns into a formula, into a keyboard, a person will start moving his own cerebellum, combining cerebral convolutions, inventing mental switches and switches of character and inclinations. But he can't stop. The station is beyond life. Until immortality is invented.

Zamyatin laughed. I - also laughing - added that we can enjoy the beautiful even now. Every time, for example, entering a purposefully equipped room (hospital operating room, observatory, lavatory), I experience a sense of visual satisfaction, I feel beautiful at the sight of dazzlingly white, strictly hygienic walls, impeccably logical, peremptory forms of instruments and all kinds of details. The picture is truly deeply touching for everyone who has not forgotten how to see beauty. In order to evoke a sense of beauty, it is not at all necessary to paint landscapes or lascivious marquises, as the Levitans or Somovs do. There was another burst of laughter.

I like to be precise, - Zamyatin said, - the words spoken are often forgotten. Unfortunately, we do not have a stenographer. Therefore, I will answer you in writing.

And, indeed, the next day I received a letter from Zamyatin, which was the shortest comic summary of the novel "We".

“My dear Yuri Annenkov!” Zamyatin wrote. “I surrender: you are right. Technology is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipotent. Here I see this blissful time. Everything is simplified. Only one form is allowed in architecture - a cube. Flowers? They are inexpedient, this is beauty is useless: they do not exist. Trees too. Music is, of course, only sounding Pythagorean pants. From the works of ancient of the epoch, only the "Railway Schedule" entered the anthology. People are lubricated with machine oil, polished and precise, like the six-wheeled hero of the Schedule. Deviation from the norms is called madness. That is why Shakespeares, Dostoevskys and Scriabins who deviate from the norms are tied up in crazy shirts and put in cork insulators "Children are made in factories - hundreds, original packages, like patented products; earlier, they say, this was done in some artisanal way. Another millennium - and from the corresponding only pink pimples will remain in the relevant organs (like the way men now have on the chest on the right and left). However, while some, sparrows, still survived, but love has been replaced by the useful, at the appointed hour, the administration of sexual needs; like the administration of other natural needs, it takes place in the most luxurious, fragrant latrines - something like prehistoric Roman baths ... And now, you, dearest Yuri Annenkov, ended up in this paradise. Not this one, who invented the industrialization of art out of anguish, but a real, mischievous, lazy, looser, neat in only one thing: being late, not a fool to drink and, in spite of me, join Mary - a beautiful Petersburger of those years, whom we both then looked after at the same time ( or, as Zamyatin said, "they hit"). My dear friend! In this expedient, organized and most precise universe, you would be motion sick in half an hour... There are two precious beginnings in a person: the brain and sex. From the first - all science, from the second - all art. And cutting off all art from oneself or driving it into the brain means cutting it off ... well, yes, and being left with only one pimple. A person with a pimple can talk about marquises engaged in fornication. Fornication, that is, violation of the schedules established by legal marriage, is, of course, an anti-religious and unorganized institution. And, in my opinion, the marquise, if she does her job with all her heart and is beautiful, is a wonderful woman. And a person who portrays love well and teaches love to those who do not know it well is a useful person. Your formula of art - "the science that knows and organizes life" - is the formula of art for eunuchs, for pickled in vinegar, like my venerable vicar Dyuli in The Islanders, who has a whole life on a schedule, and love is also on Saturdays), and already, of course (long live the man of the future - Mr. Dewley!), no game, no whim, useless whim, chance - everything is organized and expedient ... My dear Annenkov, you have become infected with machine-god. The materialistic religion, which is under the highest patronage, is as miserable as any other. And like any other, it is only a wall that a person builds out of cowardice in order to fence it off from infinity. On this side of the wall - everything is so simplistic, monistic, cozy, but on the other side - there is not enough spirit to look. Some wise astronomical professor (I forgot his last name) recently calculated that the universe, it turns out, is not infinite at all, its shape is spherical and its radius is so many tens of thousands of astronomical light years. But what if you ask him: well, then, beyond the limits of your spherical and finite universe, what is there? And further, Annenkov, further, behind your endless technical progress? Well, your dressing-room is delightful; well, even more delightful, with music (Pythagorean pants); well, finally, a single, international, delightful, delightful, fragrant restroom - and then? And then - all of the most delightful latrines will run under unorganized and inappropriate bushes. And, I'm sure, before others - you. Because your paintings and drawings argue with you much better than me. And no matter how many machine-worshipping words you say, you, fortunately, will not stop painting "Yellow Mourning" and other, fortunately, inappropriate pictures. Your Evg. Zamyatin.

And a day later, meeting me, Zamyatin said smiling: “In addition to the letter, let us recall the phrase from Anatole France’s Balthasar: “La science est infaillible; mais les savants se trompent toujours" - "Science is infallible; But scientists are always wrong."

Zamyatin's final words from his letter to me - "and then - all of the most delightful latrines will run under disorganized and inappropriate bushes."

Excerpts from Zamyatin: "Realism saw the world with a simple eye; a skeleton flashed through the surface of the world to symbolism - and symbolism turned away from the world. This is the thesis and antithesis; synthesis approached the world with a complex set of glasses, and grotesque, strange multitudes of worlds open up to it ... Tomorrow - we will quite calmly buy a place in a sleeping car on Mars. Einstein plucked space and time itself from anchors. And the art that has grown out of this today's reality - how can it not be fantastic, like a dream? But still there are still houses, boots, cigarettes, and next to the office where tickets to Mars are sold, there are shops selling sausages. Hence, in today's art, there is a synthesis of fantasy with everyday life. Every detail can be felt: everything has a measure and weight, smell; from everything - juice, like from ripe cherries. And yet from stones, boots, cigarettes and sausages - a fantasy, a dream. "

True, Zamyatin did not mention here that “next to the office where tickets to Mars are sold” there are also hunger, homelessness, the absence of sausages, boots and cigarettes, that is, a reality that greatly changes “fantasy and dream”. But this is already a controversy, which is not part of my task.

Zamyatin's article "On Synthetism", the first lines of which I have quoted here, appeared in the book "Yuri Annenkov. Portraits. Text by Evgeny Zamyatin, Mikhail Kuzmin, Mikhail Babenchikov". After 8 years, in 1930, in the collection How We Write, Zamyatin, in the article Backstage, placed the following excerpt from there: "... Not a single minor detail, not a single superfluous feature (only the essence, extract, synthesis, opening to the eye in a hundredth of a second, when all feelings are brought into focus, compressed, sharpened)... Today's reader and viewer will be able to complete the picture, complete the words - and what he himself has agreed upon will be cut into him immeasurably more firmly, will grow into him organically. opens the way to the joint work of the artist - and the reader or viewer".

Zamyatin added to this excerpt: “I wrote this a few years ago about the artist Yuri Annenkov, about his drawings. I wrote this not about Annenkov, but about us, about myself, about how, in my opinion, a verbal drawing should be.”

Zamyatin was right. I don’t know why, but despite our contradictions, I always felt, as an artist, a kinship with Zamyatin’s work, and this feeling has remained in me to this day.

In 1922, Zamyatin, for his open free-thinking, was arrested, imprisoned and sentenced without trial to exile from the Soviet Union, along with a group of writers sentenced to the same. In the same place, in prison, he was given the following paper:

"R.S.F.S.R. N.K.V.D. State Political Administration. September 7, 1922 Љ 21923. Case Љ 21001. Certificate of the State P.U. for Љ21923.

1922. Moscow, Bolshaya Lubyanka, 2. Tel. G.P.U. Switch.

Rented at the border point at a time with the presentation of foreign. passports. Visa No. 5076 issued on October 11, 1922. 1 Secretary (signature illegible) This is given gr. R.S.F.S.R. Zamyatin Evgeny Ivanovich, b. in 1884 that by the time of his departure abroad to Germany, by (day of the trip): expulsion. indefinitely, by the State. Floor. Ex. no obstacles are encountered. This certificate is issued on the basis of the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of May 10, 1922. Beginning. Special Department of the GPU - Yagoda".

Yes Yes. No more and no less: Berry! For Zamyatin, however, such a "government" reaction was neither news nor surprise. In those now distant years, Zamyatin was a revolutionary and did not hide it. It is quite natural that in 1914 the story "In the middle of nowhere" could not meet the tastes of the government of pre-revolutionary Russia. Fifteen years later, recalling this incident, Zamyatin wrote, not without irony: “A strange thing came out with this story (“In the middle of nowhere”). After it was printed two or three times, I happened to meet former Far Eastern officers who assured me that they knew living people depicted in the story, and that their real names are such and such, and that the action takes place there and there. And, meanwhile, I never went further than the Urals, all these "living people "(except for 1/10 Azancheev) lived only in my imagination, and out of the whole story, only one chapter about the" lancepup club "is built on a story I heard from someone. "What regiment did you serve in?" - I: "Neither in which. In general, he did not serve. "-" Okay! Rub glasses "!"

Then came the communist revolution, which soon (with unexpected speed!) turned into a regime of new bureaucracy and enslavement, which did not have time to kill the revolutionary in Zamyatin: Zamyatin remained with them. The novel "We", as I said, was already written in 1920. It is quite natural that he could not meet the tastes of the post-revolutionary bureaucracy and was banned from publication in the Soviet Union. But it is enough to quote a few extracts from Zamyatin's articles that slipped through the Soviet press in order to feel the heroic stability of Zamyatin's convictions and understand the reasons for the punishment that followed.

"The world is alive only by heretics. Our creed is heresy... Yesterday there was a tsar and there were slaves, today there is no tsar, but there are slaves... The imperialist war and the civil war have turned man into material for war, into numbers, into numbers ... Man dies. Proud homo erectus gets down on all fours, overgrown with fangs and hair, in man the beast wins. The wild Middle Ages returns, the value of human life is rapidly falling... We can no longer be silent."

"Resolutions, resolutions, paragraphs, trees - and there is no forest behind the trees. What can captivate in a political literacy? - nothing ...

From my (heretical) point of view, an unyielding stubborn enemy is much more worthy of respect than a sudden communist ... Service to the ruling class, built on the fact that this service is profitable - should by no means lead a revolutionary to calf's delight; from such a service, naturally turning into a servant - a revolutionary should be sick ... Dogs that serve based on a piece of fried food or out of fear of a whip - revolutions are not needed; trainers of such dogs are not needed either ... ".

"A writer who cannot become nimble must go to work with a briefcase if he wants to live. Nowadays, Gogol would run to the theater department with a briefcase; Turgenev in World Literature would undoubtedly translate Balzac and Flaubert; Herzen read lectures in the Baltic Fleet, Chekhov would have served in the Komzdrav.Otherwise, in order to live - to live as a student lived five years ago on forty rubles - Gogol would have to write a month for four "Inspectors", Turgenev every two months for three "Fathers and children", Chekhov - a hundred stories a month ...

But even this is not the main thing: Russian writers are used to starving. The main thing is that real literature can exist only where it is made not by executive officials, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, skeptics...

I am afraid that we will not have real literature until we stop looking at the Russian demos as a child whose innocence must be protected ... I am afraid that Russian literature has only one future: its past. "And much more.

Zamyatin was extremely pleased with the decision to deport him abroad: finally, a free life! But Zamyatin's friends, not knowing his opinion, began to work diligently for him before the authorities, and, in the end, they succeeded: the sentence was canceled. Zamyatin was released from prison, and on the same day, to his deep chagrin, he learned, from the words of Boris Pilnyak, that the deportation abroad would not take place.

Shortly after his release from prison, Zamyatin, together with me, was present on Nikolaevskaya Embankment, in Petrograd, at the send-off of several writers expelled from the Soviet Union, among whom were Osorgin, Berdyaev, Karsavin, Volkovysk and some others, whose names I have now forgotten. There were no more than ten people seeing them off: many were probably afraid to openly say goodbye to the deported "enemies" of the Soviet regime. We were not allowed on the ship. We were on the embankment. When the steamer set sail, those leaving were already invisibly sitting in their cabins. Failed to say goodbye. Immediately after this, Zamyatin filed a petition for his expulsion abroad, but was categorically refused.

I left the Soviet Union in the autumn of 1924. Zamyatin heroically stayed there. True, Zamyatin's literary success was growing, and not only in books, but also in the theater. His play "Flea" was held in those years at the Second Moscow Art Theater (MKhAT 2nd) and at the Petrograd Bolshoi Drama Theater - over three thousand times. The basis of the play is Leskov's story "Lefty". The 2nd Moscow Art Theater turned to Alexei Tolstoy with a request to stage this story, but Tolstoy refused, saying that it was impossible. The theater then turned to Zamyatin, and he, realizing the difficulty of this work, nevertheless accepted the offer.

The success of "Flea" was enormous both in Moscow and in Petrograd. One of the main qualities of the play, as always with Zamyatin, was linguistic phonetics. Zamyatin himself said that "it was necessary to give a dramatized tale." But - not a half tale, like Remizov's, where the author's remarks are only slightly colored by the language of the tale, but a complete one, like Leskov's, when everything is conducted on behalf of an imaginary author in one language. In "Flea" a type of complete tale is dramatized. The play is played out as some imaginary Tula folk theater actors would play it out. It justifies all verbal and syntactic shifts in the language. "Of course, there is not much left of Leskov. Zamyatin grew up. He omitted a number of chapters of Lesk's story: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th and 8. At the same time, Zamyatin introduced a number of new characters, inspired by Italian folk comedy, the Goldoni theater, Gozzi and such heroes of the dell "arte comedy as Pulcinella, Trufaldino, Brighella, Pantalone, Tartaglia, serving to enhance stage dynamics ... After performances of "Fleas" at the Petrograd Bolshoi Theater, a literary satirical club that called itself the "Physio-Geocentric Association", or in short "Fig", arranged an evening, or rather, a night dedicated to Zamyatin's performance, in the presence of the author and actors. Here are some excerpts from the playful songs sung that night:

BALLAD OF A BLOK

Words by Lyudmila Davidovich. Music by Mussorgsky

Once upon a time there lived Leskov.
Flea lived with him!
Flea... Flea...
And not rich glory
She gave him!
Flea! Ha ha ha!

Half a century has passed
Leskov lay down in the grave!
And then the flea got
To Zamyatin under the roof!

And this Flea
Went instantly into action -
The doors of the Moscow Art Theater opened
People flocked to her!
To Bloch!
Ha ha! Hehe!

She's a bait for everyone
And a tasty morsel!
And now, to the banks of the Fontanka
Rock brings her!

Flea premiere
Brings her success
In the capitals of the USSR
Flea laugh sounds!

The view of the Flea is perky,
And a colorful tune!
Shaporin gave it to her,
And the background is Kustodiev!

Flea gives everyone instantly
And glory and honor.
But what about Leskov? - Figa
He sends his greetings.

Fig night ended, according to witnesses, in endless laughter. And even the "Internationale" was performed, to the laughter, which intensified even more.

But Zamyatin lived in the Soviet Union, and living conditions there became more difficult every day. Zamyatin's novel "We" was published in English in New York in 1924. But in the same 1924, the publication of the novel "We" in Russian was banned in the Soviet Union by the Soviet authorities. In 1927, the novel "We" was also published in Czech in Prague. This fact, like the American issue, passed without consequences in the Soviet Union. But when (also in 1927) some fragments of the novel "We" appeared in Russian, in the Prague emigre magazine "Will of Russia", the attitude towards Zamyatin immediately changed.

To be clearer and more precise, I will quote Zamyatin's exhaustive letter, published in Literaturnaya Gazeta on October 7, 1929: that the appearance of passages from "We" in the Prague "Will of Russia" was my unauthorized act, and in connection with this "act" all the necessary resolutions were adopted. But the facts are stubborn. They are more irrefutable than resolutions. Each of them can be confirmed by a document or a witness, and I want this to be known to my readers.

1. The novel "We" was written in 1920. In 1921, the manuscript was sent in the simplest way, in a registered package, through the Petrograd post office) to Berlin to Grzhebin's publishing house. This publishing house at that time had branches in Berlin, Moscow and Petrograd, and I was connected with it by contracts.

2. At the end of 1923, the publishing house made a copy of this manuscript for translation into English (this translation appeared in print until 1925), and then into Czech. About these translations, I several times gave reports to the Russian press ... Notes about this were printed in Soviet newspapers. I have never heard a single protest against the appearance of these translations.

3. In 1924, I became aware that, due to censorship conditions, the novel "We" could not be published in Soviet Russia. In view of this, I rejected all proposals to publish "We" in Russian abroad. I received such proposals from Grzhebin and later from the Petropolis publishing house.

4. In the spring of 1927, excerpts from the novel "We" appeared in the Prague magazine "Will of Russia". IG Erenburg considered it his comradely duty to inform me of this in a letter from Paris. So I learned for the first time about my "deed".

5. In the summer of 1927, Ehrenburg sent - at my request - to the publishers of "Will of Russia" a letter demanding on my behalf to stop printing excerpts from "We" ... "Will of Russia" refused to comply with my demands.

6. From Ehrenburg, I learned about one more fact: the passages printed in the "Will of Russia" were provided with a preface indicating to readers that the novel was being published in translation from Czech into Russian ... It is obvious, by the most modest logic, that such an operation on artistic work could not have been made with the knowledge and consent of the author.

This is the essence of my "act". Is there any resemblance to what was printed about this in the newspapers (for example, in Leningradskaya Pravda, where it is directly stated: “Evgeny Zamyatin let the Will of Russia publish his novel We”)? The literary campaign against me was raised by the article Volin in Literaturnaya Gazeta, No. 19. Volin forgot to say in his article that he remembered my affair two and a half years late (these passages, as I said, were published in the spring of 1927). And, finally, Volin I forgot to mention the publisher's preface to "The Will of Russia", from which it is clear that excerpts from the novel were printed without my knowledge and consent. This is Volin's "act". Whether these silences were conscious or accidental - I do not know, but a completely incorrect presentation of the facts. The case was examined by the executive bureau of the Union of Soviet Writers and the resolution of the executive bureau was published in Literaturnaya Gazeta No. 21. In paragraph 2, its executive bureau "strongly condemns the act of the above-mentioned writers" - Pilnyak and Zamyatin. In the 4th paragraph of this resolution, the executive bureau "suggests the Leningrad branch of the union to immediately investigate the circumstances of the appearance of the novel "We" abroad. Thus, we have first a conviction, and then the appointment of an investigation. I think that not a single court in the world has heard of This course of action. This is an "act" of the Union of Writers. Then, the issue of publishing my novel in the "Will of Russia" was discussed at a general meeting of the Moscow branch of the All-Russian Union of Writers, and later - at a general meeting of the Leningrad branch of the Moscow meeting, without waiting for my explanations and without even expressing a desire to hear them - adopted a resolution condemning my "deed". The members of the Moscow branch also found it timely to express their protest against the content of the novel, written nine years earlier and known to most members. In our time - nine years is equal to nine centuries. I do not consider it necessary here to defend a novel written nine years ago. I think, however, that if the members of my The Moscow branch of the Union of Writers protested against the novel "We" six years ago, when the novel was read at the bottom of the literary evenings of the Union - this would have been more timely. The general meeting of the Leningrad branch of the Union was convened on September 22. I know about its resolution only from newspaper reports. It is clear from these reports that my explanations were read in Leningrad and that the opinions of those present here were divided on this issue. Some of the writers, after my explanation, considered the incident entirely settled. But the majority found it more careful to condemn my "deed". Such was the “act” of the All-Russian Union of Writers, and from this act I draw the conclusion: Belonging to a literary organization that even indirectly takes part in the persecution of its member is impossible for me, and I hereby declare my withdrawal from the All-Russian Union of Writers. Evgeny Zamyatin Moscow, September 24, 1929.

In 1929, Yevgeny Zamyatin did not yet foresee that "such a mode of action" - conviction before the beginning of the investigation - would soon become a "everyday phenomenon" in the Soviet Union. Comments are superfluous.

In 1929, such a letter could still be printed in the Soviet press. But, "on the whole," as they say in the Soviet Union, Zamyatin's "case" and - as we see - Pilnyak's "case" were already the most accurate prototype of the Pasternak story, which thundered all over the world in 1958 only because in this "history" included the internationally renowned Nobel Prize.

If Liudmila Nikolaevna took literary collaboration with Zamyatin as a joke, then in the struggle with the vicissitudes of life, which were constantly complicated in Russia in the late twenties, the role of Lyudmila Nikolaevna was extremely significant. Zamyatin told me in Paris that the above letter, published in the Literary Gazette, was written almost entirely by his wife.

As a writer, I may be something of myself, - said Zamyatin, - but in life's difficulties I am a perfect child in need of nanny cares. Lyudmila Nikolaevna in such cases is my good nanny.

Zamyatin was right, and this was felt by everyone who knew him and Lyudmila Nikolaevna well. Zamyatin's position in the Soviet Union became more and more painful, more tragic. The publication of his works was discontinued. The play "Flea" was withdrawn from the repertoire. A new play Zamyatin, on which he worked for about three years, "Atilla", was banned from production. RAPP, that is, the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, demanded and, of course, achieved the exclusion of Zamyatin from the board of the Writers' Union. Literaturnaya Gazeta, in turn, wrote that publishing houses should be preserved, "but not for the Zamyatins," and so on. Zamyatin had to deal exclusively with translations. The fate of Boris Pasternak, the fate of Anna Akhmatova and many others. Zamyatin's translations from English were, incidentally, of exceptionally high quality. But Zamyatin, in the end, could not stand it and wrote, in June 1931, a personal letter to Joseph Stalin with a request to issue permission to travel abroad. In this letter, addressing Stalin, he said: “The person sentenced to capital punishment - the author of this letter - appeals to you with a request to replace this measure with another ... For me, as a writer, it is the death sentence that is the deprivation of the opportunity to write, and circumstances have developed in such a way that I cannot continue my work, because no creativity is conceivable if you have to work in an atmosphere of systematic, year by year, ever-increasing persecution ... The main reason for my request for permission to go abroad with my wife is a hopeless my position as a writer is here, the death sentence pronounced on me as a writer is here. This letter was published in full in Zamyatin's collection "Faces".

Supported by Maxim Gorky, permission to leave was finally received by Zamyatin, and, in November 1931, he and his wife arrived in Berlin. After staying there for a week, the Zamyatins moved to Prague. Then - Berlin again, after which, in February 1932, they ended up in France. Lyudmila Nikolaevna lingered in the south, and Zamyatin soon arrived in Paris and settled for some time in my second apartment on Rue Duranton. A few days later, Lyudmila Nikolaevna also arrived in Paris, and our common meetings became no less frequent than in the Soviet Union.

Lyudmila Nikolaevna remained as before modest, cheerful and hospitable. As before, she loved to talk about Zamyatin's work, but only in his absence, fearing that otherwise he would "talk" again, as she put it, about their "mythical collaboration." The apartment was, unfortunately, very small, but the books began to pile up menacingly. "Only one and a half rooms," Ludmila Nikolaevna smiled, "and there are already books - for a whole public library!" Despite this, the order in the apartment was exemplary.

Zamyatin is still the same. The same indelible sarcastic smile, the same innate optimism, riddled with irony. The novel "We" had come out, by that time, also in French, but was received rather coldly and understood only as a political pamphlet, a libel on the regime, which at that time did not yet excite the readers of free countries. Therefore, Zamyatin's novel had not yet penetrated into the general readership. Zamyatin, however, worked, as always, tirelessly. He reworked the play Attila, which had not seen the stage, into the novel The Scourge of God, published in Paris in Russian by the House of the Book, after Zamyatin's death. Zamyatin also wrote articles in French journals on the difficulties of Russian literature in the Soviet Union. He also devoted time to translating his works into French, many of which appeared in the French press. He also wrote about the theatre. He busied about staging "Fleas" and even wrote two wonderful cinematic scripts: "At the Bottom", based on the play by M. Gorky, and "Anna Karenina", based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy.

For me, optimism (despite Zamyatin's disappointment in the communist revolution) was one of the most characteristic features of the writer, sometimes leading him away from a real understanding of the events that were taking place. In 1936, a few days after the death of Maxim Gorky, French writers organized an evening in his memory in Paris, under the chairmanship of Anatole de Monzy, who then headed the Committee for the Publication of the French Encyclopedia. Two Russians spoke: Zamyatin and I (both, of course, in French).

Speaking of Gorky's frequent meetings with Stalin, Zamyatin, among other things, said: "I think I will not be mistaken if I say that the correction of many excesses in the policy of the Soviet government and the gradual softening of the dictatorship regime were the result of these friendly conversations. This role of Gorky will be appreciated only sometime later."

It is possible that obtaining permission to travel abroad seemed to Zamyatin one of the signs of a "softening of the regime", despite the fact that 1936 was already marked by the bloody Stalinist "trials", "purges" and mass extermination of the population, which culminated in 1937.

Love for Gorky's work and personal friendship with him prompted Zamyatin to transfer any of Gorky's works to the French screen. After long hesitation, Zamyatin chose the play "At the Bottom". The task was not easy, since the atmosphere of the Russian "bottom" was alien to the wide French cinematic audience. Zamyatin decided to "frenchize" it, transplant it onto French soil. But the very idea of ​​getting close to cinematographic production was, to a certain extent, inspired by Zamyatin also by practical considerations. Already in the first months of his stay in Paris, Zamyatin realized that life abroad for a Russian writer, cut off from his country, is extremely difficult. Cinema seemed to him the most accessible way to earn a living.

After living for several weeks in my apartment, the Zamyatins moved south to the Riviera.

The speech delivered by Zamyatin at the evening dedicated to Gorky’s memory ended with the following words: “A month and a half before his death, a film company in Paris decided to make a film from Gorky’s famous play “At the Bottom” according to my script. Gorky was informed of this, from he received an answer that he was satisfied with my participation in the work, that he would like to get acquainted with the adaptation of the play, that he was waiting for the manuscript. The manuscript had already been prepared for sending, but it was not necessary to send it: the addressee had left - from the earth.

To Paris, Boris Pasternak, and the three of us rode around the city in my car. I once asked where Pasternak would like to go next? He replied: "In the suburbs of St-Denis, to the tombs of the kings." - "Very timely," said Zamyatin. And we went to St-Denis...

The thirties were a time of very frequent visits by Russian writers to Paris: Zamyatin, who arrived with Stalin's permission and therefore did not consider himself an emigrant; Pasternak, Fedin, Pilnyak, Babel, Ehrenburg, Bezymensky, Slonimsky, Marietta Shaginyan, Nikulin, Alexei Tolstoy, Kirshon, Vsevolod Ivanov... Arriving in Paris, they constantly and very friendly met with emigre writers, despite political differences. Of course, there were some misunderstandings as well. So, I remember, in my apartment, Fedin reproached me for not warning him about the arrival of Osorgin, a meeting with whom seemed inappropriate to him. But this was a rare occasion, and that same evening they were talking peacefully to each other, sitting next to each other on the sofa.

With wife, Riviera.

In all the years that I knew Zamyatin, he was always surrounded by books, lived by books. Books, books, always books. Books were a kind of cult for Zamyatin.

In 1928, he wrote: “When my children go out into the street ill-dressed, I am offended for them; when the boys throw stones at them because of the fragility, it hurts me; when the doctor approaches them with tongs or a knife, it seems to me that it would be better if they cut me myself. My children are my books; I have no others."

In early 1937, Zamyatin's health deteriorated greatly. The last time I visited him was a few days before his death. Zamyatin received me, lying on the sofa, and of course, with a smile on his tired face.

Zamyatin died on March 10, 1937. On the day of the funeral, I went up to the floor of Zamyatin's apartment at No. 14, Raffet Street, but I did not have the courage to enter the apartment. I remained on the landing of the stairs in front of the open door. A few minutes later, a tearful Mstislav Dobuzhinsky came out of the apartment and leaned against the wall next to me. He told me that Zamyatin's face kept smiling. Five minutes later the coffin was carried up the stairs. The staircase in the house was steep, winding and too narrow, so that the coffin had to be lowered down it in an upright position. Many mourners were present, but it was so hard for me that I did not remember either the faces or the names.

The burial took place in the cemetery in Thie (suburb of Paris).

In the "Soviet Encyclopedia" in 1935, it was written about Zamyatin: "Zamiatin has been published since 1908. In pre-revolutionary works ("Uyezdnoe", 1911; "On the Middles", 1914) 3. acted as a depiction of the stupidity, narrow-mindedness and cruelty of the provincial bourgeoisie and provincial officers In his post-revolutionary work, 3. continues to give the same conservative provincial philistinism, which, in his opinion, has remained characteristic of Soviet Russia.The bourgeois writer, 3. in his works (especially in "The Cave" and "Unholy Stories") draws a picture that completely distorts Soviet reality. In the novel We, published abroad, 3. viciously slanders the Soviet country.

In subsequent editions of the "Soviet Encyclopedia" Zamyatin's name is not mentioned. But Lyudmila Nikolaevna was distinguished by rare frugality towards Zamyatin's entire literary heritage and carefully guarded everything he wrote - down to the shortest notes, notebooks, all kinds of drafts and letters. And this was not only guarded, but, at the same time, distributed according to chronological and other signs, with exact indications of dates and other explanatory notes. The Zamyatin archives survived.

After the death of Yevgeny Ivanovich, Lyudmila Nikolaevna, despite the severity of the onset of loneliness, devoted all her time and energy to finding ways to save Zamyatin's works from oblivion. Already in 1938, the novel "The Scourge of God" was published in Russian by the publishing house "House of Books" in Paris. But the years of a terrible era passed, a world war approached, which broke out a few months later, and publishing activity almost completely ceased in all countries. Only in 1952, that is, 32 years after it was written, the novel "We" was first published, finally, completely in Russian, but, of course, not in the Soviet Union, but in the United States of America, in the New York Russian publishing house named after Chekhov. In the same place, in 1955, a book of articles by Zamyatin "Persons" appeared. In 1958 "We" appeared in German. Following that, in 1959, this novel was published in Italian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and - for the second time - in English. In addition, "We" were published in the "Anthology of Russian Literature" of the Soviet period. Finally, in 1963, a volume of novels and stories by Zamyatin was published in Russian.

Russian literature owes all this to Lyudmila Nikolaevna.

In 1965, having fulfilled her duty, Lyudmila Nikolaevna returned to her husband, and her coffin took refuge in the grave of Yevgeny Zamyatin, in Tiye.

Zamyatin Evgeny Ivanovich; Russian Empire, Lebedyan; 01/20/1884 - 03/10/1937

Evgeny Zamyatin is a famous Russian writer, whose works were translated into many languages ​​of the world during the life of the writer. During the Soviet era, his work was consigned to oblivion, although he was a member of the Writers' Union. Now Zamyatin's books are becoming more and more popular to read. This is especially true of Zamyatin's novel "We", which was included in the school curriculum for students in grades 10-11.

Biography of Evgeny Zamyatin

Evgeny Zamyatin was born in 1884 into the family of an Orthodox priest and pianist. At the age of nine, he entered the Lebedyansk Gymnasium, where he studied until 1896. Then he transferred to the Voronezh gymnasium, which he graduated at the age of eighteen with a gold medal. Zamyatin's favorite subjects were mathematics and literature, and therefore he chose shipbuilding as his future profession. Where knowledge of mathematics was one of the most important aspects. Therefore, immediately after graduating from high school, he entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute at the appropriate department.

In 1904, while still studying at the institute, he became a member of the Social Democratic Party. This led to the fact that two years later he was arrested and sent to his homeland in Lebedyan. But in order to complete his studies, he secretly returned to St. Petersburg.

It became possible to read Zamyatin for the first time in 1908, when a short story “One” was published from his pen. His next story "Girl" was published only two years later, when he worked as a teacher at his native department of shipbuilding. In 1911, it becomes possible to read Zamyatin's first story. It is called "In the middle of nowhere" and has a pronounced anti-war stance. Despite the fact that the story was highly appreciated by critics, in 1914 he was again arrested and exiled to the Arkhangelsk province. After spending two years in exile, he went to London. At that time, the construction of icebreakers for Russia was going on there, and Evgeny Zamyatin took an active part in the work on them.

After returning to Russia in 1917, he takes an active part in the literary life of the country and even organizes the Serapion Brothers group. But in 1919, along with some other artists, he was arrested. The Politburo discusses the question of his expulsion several times, but they decide to leave the writer in the country. In 1920, Zamyatin's first novel, We, was published. He was met with harsh criticism by Soviet functionaries. Zamyatin is expelled from the Union of Writers and, unable to endure persecution, the writer personally petitions Stalin to travel abroad. Thanks to the intervention, Zamyatin receives a positive response.

Despite the persecution, Zamyatin's novel "We" is becoming very popular abroad. Without the consent of the writer, it is published in English, French and many other languages. Subsequently, the influence of Zamyatin's novel is felt in the books of Aldous Huxley and many other science fiction writers.

After going abroad, Evgeny Zamyatin moves to Riga, then Berlin, until he settles in Paris. He tries to keep in touch with his homeland and even is a member of the Union of Writers. He writes a lot about the state of affairs in the USSR and even takes part in international conferences as a representative of the USSR. But until his death in 1937, the writer no longer visited his homeland.

Books by Evgeny Zamyatin on the Top Books website

Evgeny Zamyatin got into our rating thanks to his only fully written novel, We. In addition, the work is presented among and given its inclusion in the school curriculum, it has every chance of being presented in it in the future. Only fluctuations in the position of the book in the ratings of our site are possible, depending on its passage in the school curriculum.

Evgenia Zamyatina book list

1. Alatyr
2. catcher of men
3. On Easter cakes
4. Islanders
5. North
6. county

Stories:

1. Arabs
2. Africa
3. Burime
4. Vision
5. Meeting
6. Eyes
7. Young woman
8. Ten Minute Drama
9. The Dragon
10. Pictures
11. A Brief History of Literature from its Foundation to the Present Day
12. Ridges
13. Mamai
14. Martyrs of Science
15. Martyr of Science
16. Flood
17. About the blessed old man Pamva Nerest...
18. About the holy sin of Zenitsa the virgin
19. About the miracle that happened on Ash Wednesday...
20. Society of Honorary Bell Ringers
21. Cave
22. in writing
23. The truth is true
24. The story of the most important
25. The floor is given to Comrade Churygin
26. student son
27. Three days
28. womb
29. Epitaphs of 1929
30. I'm afraid