Mikhail Zoshchenko: life, creativity. Stories for children

Zoshchenko Mikhail Mikhailovich, the famous Russian writer and playwright, was born in 1894, on July 29 (according to some reports, in 1895), in St. Petersburg. His father was an artist, a Wanderer, and his mother an actress. First, we will tell you about the life of such a writer as Mikhail Zoshchenko. The biography, presented below, describes the main events of his life's path. Having told about them, we will go on to describe the work of Mikhail Mikhailovich.

Training in the gymnasium and at the St. Petersburg Institute

Parents in 1903 gave their son to study at St. Petersburg Gymnasium No. 8. Mikhail Zoshchenko, whose biography can be recreated, including on the basis of his own memories and works, talking about these years, noted that he had studied rather badly, in Features of the Russian language. For the essay on the exam he received a unit. However, Mikhail Mikhailovich notes that at that time he wanted to be a writer. For the present, only Mikhail Zoshchenko himself created stories and poems for himself.

Life is sometimes paradoxical. Started to compose in nine years, the future famous writer - the most lagging in the class of a student in the Russian language! Unsuccessful it seemed strange to him. Zoshchenko Mikhail Mikhailovich notes that at that time he even wanted to commit suicide. However, his fate preserved.

After graduation in 1913, the future writer continued his education at the St. Petersburg Institute, at the Faculty of Law. A year later, because of non-payment for training, he was expelled therefrom. Zoshchenko had to go to work. He began to work on the Caucasian railroad as an inspector.

War time

Habitual life was interrupted by the First World War. Michael decided to enter the military service. At first he became a junker of rank and file and went to the Pavlov Military School, then, after completing four-month accelerated courses, went to the front.

Zoshchenko noted that he did not have a patriotic mood, he just could not sit in one place for a long time. In the service, however, Mikhail Mikhailovich distinguished himself. He was a participant in many battles, was poisoned by gases, was wounded. Starting to participate in the battles in the rank of ensign, Zoshchenko was already captained to the reserve (the reason is the consequences of poisoning with gases). In addition, he was awarded four orders for military service.

Return to Petrograd

Mikhail Mikhailovich, having returned to Petrograd, met V. V. Kerbits-Kerbitskaya, his future wife. After the February Revolution, Zoshchenko was appointed head of the telegraph and post office, as well as the commandant of the Main Post Office. Then there was a business trip to Arkhangelsk, work as an adjutant of the squad, as well as Mikhail Mikhailovich's election as secretary of the regimental court.

Service in the Red Army

However, the peaceful life is again interrupted - now by the revolution and the Civil War that followed. Mikhail Mikhailovich goes to the front. As a volunteer, he enters the Red Army (in January 1919). He serves as a regimental adjutant in the regiment of the rural poor. Zoshchenko participates in the battles near Yamburg and Narva against Bulak-Balakhovich. After a heart attack, Mikhail Mikhailovich had to demobilize and return to Petrograd.

Zoshchenko in the period from 1918 to 1921 changed many classes. Subsequently, he wrote that he tried himself in about 10-12 professions. He worked as a policeman, a carpenter, a shoemaker, and a criminal investigation agent.

Life in peaceful years

The writer in January 1920 experiences the death of his mother. By the same year, his marriage to Kerbits-Kerbitskaya belongs. Together with her, he moved to the street. B. Zelenin. In the son of Zoshchenko, in May 1922, the son Valery was born. Mikhail Mikhailovich in 1930, together with a team of writers sent to the Baltic Shipyard.

Years of the Great Patriotic War

Mikhail Zoshchenko at the beginning of the war wrote a statement in which he asked to be included in the Red Army. However, he receives a refusal - he is recognized as unfit for military service. Zoshchenko has to lead anti-fascist activities not on the battlefield. He creates anti-war feuilletons and publishes them in the newspapers, sends them to the Radio Committee. In 1941, in October, he was evacuated to Alma-Ata, and a month later he became an employee of Mosfilm, working in the scenario department of the studio.

Persecution

Zoshchenko in 1943 is summoned to Moscow. Here he is offered to take up the post of editor of "Crocodile". However, Mikhail Mikhailovich refuses this offer. Nevertheless, he is a member of the editorial board of Crocodile. Outwardly everything looks good. However, after a while, over the head of Mikhail Mikhailovich, the clouds are beginning to thicken more and more: they take him out of the editorial board, are evicted from the hotel, deprived of food rations. Persecution continues. Tikhonov, NS at the plenum of the SSP even attacks the story Zoshchenko "Before sunrise." The writer is practically not printed, but still introduced in 1946 in the editorial board of the "Stars".

August 14, 1946 - the apotheosis of all its vicissitudes. It was then that the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) issued a decree on the journals Leningrad and Zvezda. After that, Zoshchenko is expelled from the Writers' Union, and also deprived of a food card. This time the reason for the attacks was completely insignificant - a children's story Zoshchenko called "Adventures of the monkey." All magazines, publishers and theaters follow the resolution and dissolve the contracts they concluded earlier, demanding to return the advances issued. Zoshchenko's family is in poverty. She is forced to exist on the money earned from the sale of personal items. The writer tries to earn in artel shoemakers. In the end, the food card is returned to him. In addition, Mikhail Zoshchenko publishes stories and feuilletons (of course, not all). However, it is mainly the translation work that is necessary to earn a living at this time.

Mikhail Zoshchenko manages to recover in the Writers' Union only after Stalin's death. A significant event occurs on June 23, 1953 - the writer is again admitted to the Union. However, this is not the end. Mikhail Mikhailovich did not last long this time to be his member.

May 5, 1954 there was a fatal event. Anna Akhmatova and he was invited that day to the writer's house, where a meeting with a group of English students was to take place. The writer on it has declared publicly on disagreement with the charges started in his address. A new stage of baiting begins after this. All these vicissitudes affected his health undermined. Published on September 7, 1953 article "Facts expose the truth" was the last straw. After that, the writer's name ceased to be mentioned. For about two months, this oblivion continued. However, Mikhail Mikhaylovich already in November offering cooperation two magazines - "Leningrad Almanac" and "Crocodile." A whole group of writers stands up for his defense: Chukovsky, Kaverin, Vses. Ivanov, N. Tikhonov. In 1957, in December, he released "Selected stories and novels 1923-1956." However, the writer's mental and physical state is deteriorating. A sharp decline in his strength takes place by the spring of 1958. Zoshchenko is losing interest in life.

Death of Zoshchenko

July 22, 1958, Mikhail Zoshchenko died. Even his body after death was disgraced: it was not given permission to bury him in Leningrad. The ashes of the writer rest in Sestroretsk.

Mikhail Zoshchenko, whose life story was devoted to the first part of our article, left a great creative legacy. His way as a writer was not easy. We suggest getting to know more closely how his creative destiny developed. In addition, you will find out what stories Mikhail Zoshchenko created for children and what are their features.

Creative way

Zoshchenko actively began to write after he was demobilized in 1919. His first experiments were literary-critical articles. In the "Petersburg Almanac" in 1921 appears his first story.

Serapion Brothers

In the group called "Serapion Brothers" Zoshchenko led in 1921 the desire to become a professional writer. This group was apprehensive about critics, but noted that among them Zoshchenko is the "strongest" figure. Mikhail Mikhailovich went along with Slonimsky to the central faction, which adhered to the conviction that the Russian tradition-Lermontov, Gogol, and Pushkin-should learn. Zoshchenko feared in the literature of the "noble restoration", considered A. Blok "a knight of a sad image" and pinned his hopes on literature with heroic pathos. In "Alkonost" in May 1922 appeared the first almanac of the serapions, in which the story of Mikhail Mikhailovich was published. A "Stories of Nazar Ilyich, Mr. Sinebryukhov" - a book that became his first independent publication.

Characteristics of early creativity

The school of Anton Chekhov was noticeable in the early works of Zoshchenko. These are, for example, stories such as "The Fish Female," "War," "Love," etc. However, he soon rejected it. Zoshchenko considered the large form of Chekhov's stories not appropriate to the needs of the modern reader. He wanted to reproduce in the language "the syntax of the street ... of the people." Zoshchenko considered himself a man who temporarily replaced the writer of the proletarian.

A large group of writers in 1927 created a collective declaration. In it, a new literary and aesthetic position was highlighted. M. Zoshchenko was among those who signed it. He was published at that time in periodicals (mainly in the satirical magazines Smehach, Behemoth, Chudak, Buzoter, Muhomor, The Inspector General, etc.). However, not everything was smooth. Because of the story "Unpleasant story" by M. Zoshchenko, allegedly "politically harmful", in June 1927 the number of the magazine "Behemoth" was confiscated. Gradually, this kind of publications is being liquidated. In Leningrad in 1930, the "Inspector General", the last satirical magazine, was also closed. However, Mikhail Mikhailovich does not despair and decides to continue working.

Two sides of fame

With the magazine "Crocodile" he cooperates since 1932. At this time, Mikhail Zoshchenko collects material for his story called "Returned Youth", as well as studying literature on medicine, psychoanalysis and physiology. His works are already well known even in the West. However, the fame of this was the downside. In Germany, in 1933, Zoshchenko's books were exposed in accordance with Hitler's black list to the public auto-da-fe.

New works

In the USSR at the same time, the comedy of Mikhail Zoshchenko "Cultural Heritage" is published and staged on the stage. The Blue Book, one of his most famous books, begins to be published in 1934. In addition to novellas, short stories and plays, Zoshchenko also writes feuilletons and historical novels (Taras Shevchenko, Kerensky, Vozmezdie, The Black Prince, and others). In addition, he creates stories for children ("Smart Animals", "Grandma's Gift", "Christmas Tree", etc.).

Children's stories Zoshchenko

Mikhail Zoshchenko wrote many stories for children. They were published in magazines from 1937 to 1945. Of these, some were separate works, while others were combined in cycles. The cycle "Lelya and Minka" is most famous.

In 1939 - the 1940's. Mikhail Zoshchenko created this series of works. It included the following stories: "Golden words", "Great travelers", "Nakhodka", "In thirty years", "Do not lie", "Galoshes and ice cream", "Grandma's gift", "Elka". It is not by chance that Mikhail Zoshchenko united them in one cycle. Brief contents of these works allow to draw a conclusion that they have something in common, namely images of the main characters. It's a little Minka and Lelya, his sister.

The story is narrated from the narrator. His image is no less interesting than the heroes of the stories of Mikhail Zoshchenko. This is an adult who remembers instructive and comic episodes from his childhood. Note that there is a similarity between the author and the narrator (even the name coincides, and there is also an indication of the writer's profession). Until full coincidence, however, does not reach. The narrator's speech differs significantly from the author's. This form of narrative is called a literary tale. He was particularly relevant in Soviet literature of the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, the whole culture was distinguished by its desire for stylistic and linguistic experiments.

In these stories, as S. Ya. Marshak notes, the author not only does not hide morality. He speaks about it with all frankness in the text, and sometimes in the title of the works ("Do not lie"). However, stories from this do not become didactic. They are rescued by humor, always unexpected, and also the special gravity inherent in Zoshchenko. At the heart of Mikhail Mikhailovich's unexpected humor is a witty parody.

Today, many works that Mikhail Zoshchenko wrote are very popular. His books are held in school, they are loved by adults and children. His way in literature was not easy, as, indeed, the fate of many other writers and poets of the Soviet era. The twentieth century is a difficult period in history, but even in the war years, many works have been created that have become a classic of Russian literature. The biography of such a great writer as Mikhail Zoshchenko, summarized by us, we hope, has caused you interest in his work.