Alexander Green - biography, information, personal life. The dramatic fate of Nina Green - the widow of the writer Alexander Green (11 photos) Wanderings and revolutionary activities
The famous Russian writer Alexander Green gave the reading world many different works. However, most book lovers associate the name of this talented person, whose life is filled interesting facts, with the extravaganza story “Scarlet Sails,” which tells the story of a girl named. The main character of the book met her lover, and the plot of this work about unshakable faith and a sincere dream became the background for the cinematic works of famous directors.
Childhood and youth
Alexander Grinevsky ( real name writer) was born on August 11 (23), 1880. Young Sasha spent his childhood in the city of Slobodsky, which is now located in the Kirov region. Greene grew up and was brought up in an uncreative family that did not belong to the literary world.
His father Stefan Grinevsky, a Pole by nationality, belonged to the military class of gentry. When Stefan (in Russia he was called Stepan Evseevich) turned 20 years old, he became a participant in the January Uprising, which occurred in 1863.
For armed brawl on former lands Rzeczpospolita, which went to Russian Empire, Grinevsky was exiled indefinitely to Kolyvan, Tomsk province. In 1868, the young man was allowed to settle in the Vyatka province.
In 1873, Grinevsky proposed marriage to Anna Lepkova, who worked as a nurse. The first-born Alexander was born to the couple only after seven years of marriage. Later, the Grinevskys had three more children: a boy and two girls. Greene's parents raised him inconsistently. Sometimes the future writer was pampered, and at other times he was severely punished or even abandoned without supervision.
It is noteworthy that Alexander’s love for reading appeared at an early age. When the child was 6 years old, he learned to read: instead of playing with his peers in the fresh air, the boy leafed through adventure books. The first work Sasha read was the tetralogy “Gulliver’s Travels,” which tells about how someone ended up in the world of Lilliputians.
In addition, young Green loved stories about fearless sailors who travel through the waters of the Earth. Therefore, it is not surprising that the little dreamer sought to repeat the life of literary heroes: Sasha, who dreamed of going to sea as a sailor, tried to run away from home.
In 1889, a nine-year-old boy was sent to a preparatory class at a real school. By the way, it was Sasha’s classmates who gave him the nickname “Green.” It is noteworthy that the author of the works was not an obedient child: Grinevsky, on the contrary, caused trouble for teachers, who noted that his behavior was “worse than all others.” However, Green managed to graduate from the preparatory class and move up to a higher level.
However, as a second-grader, the son of a Polish nobleman was expelled from school. The fact is that Sasha, remembered for his restless character, decided to show his talent and wrote a poem about teachers.
True, this work was not an ode in style: it contained ironic overtones and was considered very offensive. But in 1892, Grinevsky managed to return to study: thanks to his father, the young man was accepted into the Vyatka School, which had a bad reputation.
When the young man turned 15 years old, a terrible event happened in his life: Alexander Green lost his mother, who died of tuberculosis.
A few months later, Stepan Grinevsky married Lydia Boretskaya, however, the relationship with Sasha’s stepmother did not work out, which is why the guy settled separately from his father’s family. The master of words lived alone, and adventure books saved the young man from the atmosphere of provincial Vyatka, in which “lies, hypocrisy and falsehood” reigned.
The future prose writer spent six years wandering. During this time, he managed to work as a bookbinder, loader, fisherman, railway worker, navvy, and even a traveling circus performer. In 1896, he graduated from the Vyatka School and went to Odessa to become a sailor, receiving 25 rubles from his father. In the new city, Green wandered for some time; he had no money for food.
When Alexander found himself on the ship, his expectations did not coincide with reality: instead of delight, the young man felt disgust for the prosaic work of a sailor and quarreled with the captain of the ship.
In 1902, due to an extreme need for money, Alexander Stepanovich entered the soldier's service. The hardship of a soldier's life forced Grinevsky to desert: after rapprochement with the revolutionaries, Green became involved in underground activities. In 1903 young man arrested and sent to Siberia for 10 years. He also spent two years in exile in Arkhangelsk and at one time lived under someone else’s passport in St. Petersburg.
Literature
Alexander Stepanovich Green wrote his first story in 1906: from that moment creativity captured the young man entirely. His first work, entitled “The Merit of Private Panteleev,” talks about the violations that occur in soldier service.
Green's debut work was published under the signature of A.S.G. as a propaganda brochure for serving in the army, punitive soldiers. It is worth noting that the entire circulation was confiscated from the printing house and burned by the police. All his life, Alexander Stepanovich considered his work lost, but in 1960 one copy of the brochure was found in the folder of the “Department of Material Evidence of the Moscow Gendarmerie.”
Beginning in 1908, the writer began publishing collections of stories, publishing under the creative pseudonym “Green”: the author wrote approximately 25 stories a year, earning good money at the same time. In 1913, the reading public saw the works of Alexander Stepanovich in the form of a three-volume book.
Every year Grinevsky improved his skills: the themes of his works expanded, the plots became deep and unpredictable, and the writer filled his books with quotes and aphorisms that became widely known among the people.
It is worth noting that Grinevsky occupies a special place in the world of Russian literature. The fact is that the author had neither predecessors, nor followers, nor imitators. However, the writer himself was accused of borrowing plots from and others creative personalities. But when analyzing the texts, it turned out that this similarity is very superficial and unfounded.
Also, the name of Alexander Green is compared with the country of Greenland. The author himself did not use the name of this fictional location in his works; it was invented by the Soviet critic Cornelius Zelensky, who thus described the locations of the main characters in Greene’s novels.
Researchers believe that the peninsula where the writer’s country is located is located on the southern maritime border of China. Such conclusions were made based on references to real places in the works: New Zealand, Pacific Ocean etc.
In 1916-1922, Green wrote the story “Scarlet Sails”, which made him famous. It is noteworthy that the master of the pen dedicated this work to his second wife Nina. The idea for the work was born spontaneously in the writer’s head: Alexander Stepanovich saw a boat with white sails in a toy window.
“This toy told me something, but I didn’t know what, then I wondered if the red sail would say more, but better than that- scarlet color, because in scarlet there is a bright glee. Rejoicing means knowing why you rejoice. And so, unfolding from this, taking the waves and the ship with scarlet sails, I saw the purpose of its existence,” this is how the writer described his memories in the drafts for “Running on the Waves.”
In 1928, Alexander Stepanovich released his significant work, to which he gave the title “Running on the Waves.”
This novel about the impossible has been classified by modern critics as a fantasy genre. Alexander Greene is also familiar to readers from his works “The Wrath of the Father” (1929), “The Road to Nowhere” (1929) and “The Devil of Orange Waters” (1913).
The writer’s latest novel is called “Touchable,” however, Alexander Green did not have time to finish this work.
Personal life
From Green's biography it is known that he was baptized Orthodox rite, although his father was a practicing Catholic. Despite the fact that the religious views of the writer began to change over time, his wife noted: while in Crimea, Grinevsky attended the local church and especially loved the celebration of Easter.
Their marriage, which began in 1908, ended in divorce five years later on Abramova’s initiative: the woman, according to her, was tired of her husband’s unpredictability and uncontrollability. Green's frequent carousings did not add to mutual understanding. Alexander Stepanovich himself repeatedly made attempts to reunite. He dedicated several books to Vera, on one of them he wrote: “To my only friend.” Also, until the end of his life, Green did not part with the portrait of Vera Pavlovna.
However, in 1921, the young man married Nina Mironova, with whom he lived for the rest of his life. The couple lived happily and considered each other a gift from fate.
When Alexander Stepanovich died, Nina Green, after the occupation of Crimea by the Germans, was exiled to Germany to work. Upon returning to the USSR, the woman was accused of treason, so she spent the next 10 years in camps. It is noteworthy that both Greene’s spouses not only knew each other, but were also friends, and supported each other whenever possible during the difficult occupation and camp times.
Death
Alexander Stepanovich Green died in the summer of 1932. The cause of death was stomach cancer. The prose writer is buried in Old Crimea, and on his grave there is a monument based on the work “Running on the Waves.”
It is worth noting that after the victory Soviet Union During World War II, Greene's books were considered anti-Soviet and contrary to the ideas of the proletariat. Only after his death was Green's name rehabilitated.
In memory of the novelist, a museum was opened in Feodosia, streets, libraries, gymnasiums were named, sculptures were created, and much more.
Bibliography
- 1906 – “To Italy”
- 1907 – “Oranges”
- 1907 – “Beloved”
- 1908 – “The Tramp”
- 1908 – “Two Men”
- 1909 – “Airship”
- 1909 – “Maniac”
- 1909 – “An Incident in Dog Street”
- 1910 – “In the Forest”
- 1910 – “Box of Soap”
- 1911 – “Moonlight Read”
- 1912 – " Winter's Tale»
- 1914 – “Without an audience”
- 1915 – “The Lunatic Aviator”
- 1916 – “The Mystery of House 41”
- 1917 – “Bourgeois Spirit”
- 1918 – “Bulls in Tomatoes”
- 1922 – “White Fire”
- 1923 – “Scarlet Sails”
- 1924 – “The Cheerful Fellow Traveler”
- 1925 – “Six Matches”
- 1927 – “The Legend of Ferguson”
- 1928 – “Running on the Waves”
- 1933 – “Velvet Curtain”
- 1960 – “We sat on the shore”
- 1961 – “Stone Pillar Ranch”
Russian prose writer and poet Alexander Green(Alexander Stepanovich Grinevsky; August 23, 1880, Sloboda, Vyatka province - July 8, 1932, Old Crimea) entered literature as a representative of romantic realism (neo-romanticism) and the author of philosophical and psychological works with elements of fantasy.
His father, Polish nobleman Stepan (Stefan) Grinevsky (1843 -1914) was exiled from Warsaw to the Russian North for his participation in the 1863 uprising. Mother - Anna Grinevskaya (née Lepkova, 1857-1895), daughter of a retired collegiate secretary. In 1881, the family moved to the city of Vyatka (now Kirov).
At the age of sixteen, Alexander Grinevsky graduated from the four-year Vyatka City School with mostly satisfactory grades and completed formal education. The young man, who had dreamed of the seas and distant countries since childhood, set out on a free voyage through life - his mother had died by that time, and his father and stepmother did not object. He left for Odessa. He led a wandering life, worked as a sailor, fisherman, navvy, a traveling circus performer, a railway worker, and panned for gold in the Urals.
In 1902, due to extreme need, he voluntarily entered military service, but due to the severity of life, he escaped twice according to the regulations. During his service, he became close to the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) and became involved in revolutionary activities. True, after the fugitive soldier refused to participate in terrorist attacks, the Socialist Revolutionaries successfully used him for propaganda among sailors and soldiers. As the writer writes in the “Autobiographical Story”: “This happened in October 1903, after many strikes and demonstrations in such large cities as Odessa, Yekaterinoslav, Kyiv and others.” He was sent from Odessa to Sevastopol for revolutionary propaganda among the rank and file of the fortress artillery and the sailors of the naval barracks in order to win over the side of the “social revolutionary party.” But he was arrested on November 11, 1903. Thanks to his imprisonment, he came to Feodosia for the first time, where a trial of political prisoners took place. He was released from prison under an amnesty on October 20, 1905.
In 1906, he was arrested in St. Petersburg, where he lived illegally, and deported to the Tobolsk province; from where he escaped and returned to St. Petersburg. Lived on someone else's passport. Published in metropolitan magazines, pseudonym “A.S. Green" first appeared under the story "The Case" (1907). Green's first collections of short stories, The Invisible Cap (1908) and Stories (1910), attracted critical attention.
Alexander Greene was actually married twice. His first wife was the daughter of a wealthy official, Vera Pavlovna Abramova, whom he married in 1910. In the same year, in the summer, Alexander Grinevsky was arrested for the third time for escaping from exile and living on false documents and sent into exile in the Arkhangelsk province in provincial Pinega.
Years of living under an assumed name led to a break with the revolutionary past and Green's development as a writer.
In May 1912, Grinevsky returned to St. Petersburg under his own name, but with the virus of the most common Russian disease of the soul. Due to continuous carousing, the first wife, Vera Pavlovna, left her husband. In 1912-1917 Greene worked actively, publishing about 350 stories. In 1914 he became an employee of the New Satyricon magazine.
Due to an “inappropriate comment about the reigning monarch” that became known to the police, Green was forced to hide in Finland from the end of 1916, but, after February Revolution returned to Petrograd.
In the post-revolutionary years, the writer actively collaborated with Soviet publications, especially with the literary and artistic magazine “Flame,” which was edited by People’s Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky.
In 1919, Green was drafted into the Red Army, but soon became seriously ill with typhus and returned to Petrograd. The sick writer, without a means of subsistence and without housing, was helped by Maxim Gorky, at whose request Green was given academic rations and a room in the “House of Arts”. Here the writer worked on two novels, as well as the story “Scarlet Sails,” the idea of which originated back in 1916.
The writer married for the second time in 1921 to a 26-year-old widow, nurse Nina Mironova (after Korotkova’s first husband). He dedicated the extravaganza “Scarlet Sails”, published in 1923, to her, which became the pinnacle of neo-romanticism. Nina became the prototype of Assol, dreaming of happiness, of a prince and a ship with scarlet sails. She became a real guardian angel of the writer and our next article is dedicated to her.
In 1924, the writer and his wife left for Feodosia in Crimea, where he worked fruitfully until November 1928. During this period, under the pseudonym Alexander Green, he wrote “Running on the Waves,” “The Golden Chain,” forty stories and began “Autobiographical Tale.”
Like the poet Maximilian Voloshin, who created the mysterious country of Cimmeria, Alexander Green placed his literary heroes in the fantastic Greenland, where the action of his romantic stories “Running on the Waves”, “Scarlet Sails” and other works takes place. True, the name was given after the death of the writer. The main advantage of his heroes was not only the ability to fly and walk on the waves, but the ability to realize their hopes and dreams. And this is so important for every person - hence the attractiveness of his works for readers, especially young people. As critics write, in his works Green conveyed the longing for the Unfulfilled. He did not become a sailor, became disillusioned with the revolutionaries (Socialist Revolutionaries), and lived in poverty and squalor. But the life of this untimely man was warmed by the sacrificial love of Nina Nikolaevna Green, his second wife.
In 1927, a 15-volume collected works of Green began to be published, but only 8 volumes were published. Since 1930, Soviet censorship, with the motivation “you do not merge with the era,” banned reprints of Greene, and the private publisher was arrested by the GPU. The fee was not paid in full, and lack of money, hunger and illness set in. Green's fashionable Russian disease of the soul worsened, and his binges began to recur more and more often. I had to sell my apartment in Feodosia and move to Old Crimea, where life was cheaper. At the end of April 1931, Greene last time I went to Koktebel to visit Voloshin. This route is still popular among tourists and is known as the Greene Trail.
In Old Crimea, a house (an adobe hut with an earthen floor) with a small plot was purchased from a nun in May 1932 by Alexander Green’s wife, Nina Nikolaevna, in exchange for a gold wristwatch
In the summer, Alexander Green went to Moscow, but not a single publishing house showed interest in his new novel “Touchable,” which some critics considered his best work. The Writers' Union refused a pension as an "ideological enemy." At the end of his life, Greene was almost no longer published. In the memoirs of his wife, this period is characterized by one phrase: “Then he began to die” in complete poverty and oblivion.
Alexander Green died in Old Crimea from stomach cancer on the morning of July 8, 1932, at the age of 52, and was buried in the Old Crimea cemetery. When Alexander Greene died, none of the writers who were vacationing next door in Koktebel came to say goodbye to him.
After Greene's death, at the request of several leading Soviet writers, a collection of Fantastic Novels was published in 1934. Posthumously, the writer Green was placed on the pedestal of the “Soviet romantic” by the communist authorities, and in Bolshoi Theater The premiere of the ballet “Scarlet Sails” took place.
IN post-war years struggle against cosmopolitanism, Alexander Green, like other cultural figures (A. A. Akhmatova, M. M. Zoshchenko, D. D. Shostakovich) was again branded as a “reactionary and spiritual emigrant.” The writer's books were confiscated from libraries. Only after Stalin's death, through the efforts of Konstantin Paustovsky, Yuri Olesha and other writers, his works began to be published in millions of copies since 1956.
The peak of Green's readership came during Khrushchev's “thaw.” In the wake of the romantic upsurge in the country, Alexander Green turned into one of the most published and revered domestic authors, an idol of youth.
Today, the works of Alexander Greene have been translated into many languages, streets in many cities, mountain peaks and a star bear his name. Many works, including “Scarlet Sails” and “Running on the Waves,” have been filmed.
The annual creative festival “Greenland” (Old Crimea, August 22-24) is dedicated to the writer’s birthday. On the slope of Mount Agarmysh, festival participants raise symbolic scarlet sails. Creative groups, artists, musicians, writers, poets and bards perform on the improvised stage and concert platform of the Green House. The festival ends with a walk from Old Crimea to Koktebel, along the “Green’s path” with a visit to the House-Museum of M. A. Voloshin.
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Konstantin Paustovsky, who did a lot to popularize the work of Alexander Green, has the following lines: "Green lived hard life. Everything in her, as if on purpose, worked out in such a way as to make Green a criminal or an evil man in the street.” But it turned out the other way around. Even today, almost a century later, they write about his story “Scarlet Sails” in in social networks: “This is such a wonderful book! This is an absolutely amazing book! This is the most romantic story I have ever read! And I can’t even explain why I didn’t meet her earlier, but, my God, what a charm passed me by all this time! “Scarlet Sails” is no longer just a name, it’s a symbol. Symbol of love and hope. A symbol of faith in a dream and the embodiment of the most unrealistic dreams. These are the simplest and most important truths. If you can create a miracle for someone, do it. Come to the rescue, smile, cheer, support. And you will understand how pleasant it is, how inexpressibly wonderful. There is no magic, and nothing happens on its own: miracles are created by the hands of people who love you. And how beautifully, incredibly beautifully Green writes! Creates absolutely bewitching, delightful intricacies of words. The text is literally tangible, it comes to life before our eyes. The splashing of waves and the cries of seagulls can be heard from the pages, and then a huge figure of a ship rises in front of us from the predawn fog. The lines of the mast are sharply defined. Flaming sails are torn in the wind. And the confused Assol was already frozen on the shore. And on her lips there are salty sea spray. And on her cheeks there are rays rising sun. The book gives a feeling of absolute, boundless happiness, great faith in miracles, in real, fabulous and beautiful love. Warm, bright, goosebumps wonderful story!” (Masha_
Uralskaya 09.10. 2013. —
“He could rightfully say about himself in the words of the French writer Jules Renard: “My homeland is where the most beautiful clouds float.” Green wrote almost all of his things to justify a dream. We should be grateful to him for this. We know that the future we strive for was born from an invincible human quality - the ability to dream and love,” K. Paustovsky said about his favorite writer.
Greene's legacy is much more extensive than it seems. His early stories are quite gloomy, full of bitter irony, and this is not surprising - life often turned to the writer on a gloomy, harsh side. And it is even more surprising that Greene managed to retain the ability not only to believe in the bright, but also to communicate this faith to others.
Writer A. Varlamov in his book “Alexander Green” (ZhZL, 2005) notes: “He was born in the same year as Andrei Bely and Alexander Blok, died in the same summer as Maximilian Voloshin. In essence - the pure time frame of the Silver Age, all were children of the terrible years of Russia, who did not yet know that the worst was ahead of Russia. But even in the motley picture of the literary life of that time, Greene stands apart, outside literary trends, movements, groups, circles, workshops, manifestos, and his very existence in Russian literature seems something very unusual, fantastic, like his very personality. And at the same time very significant, necessary, even inevitable, so that it is impossible to imagine great Russian literature without his name.”
Alexander Stepanovich Grinevsky was born on August 11/23, 1880 in the city of Slobodskaya Vyatka province. Since childhood, he was irresistibly drawn to search for a different life. The reality that he had to face was very far from what his soul gravitated towards. WITH early years Green was attracted by sea travel. The writer subsequently endowed one of his most famous characters, Captain Gray from " Scarlet Sails" Just like Greene himself, his Gray voraciously read books about seafarers, ran away from home to become a sailor, and then, once on a ship, went through trials, comprehending the basics sea life. True, Gray completed the job that Greene failed in reality - he became captain.
But for the writer everything turned out differently. He spent some time as a sailor on a ship plying the Odessa route, but soon left the ship and began to look for himself in other activities.
Green spent his life in overwork, poverty and malnutrition. But his gaze remained naive and pure
K. Paustovsky, who was reverent about Green’s work, dedicated to him the essay “The Storyteller,” which was included in the story “The Black Sea”: “Green, a man with a difficult, painful life, created in his stories incredible world, full of tempting events, wonderful human feelings and seaside holidays. Green was a stern storyteller and poet of sea lagoons and ports. His stories caused a slight dizziness, like the smell of crushed flowers and fresh, sad winds. Green spent almost his entire life in rooming houses, in penniless and backbreaking labor, in poverty and malnutrition. He was a sailor, a stevedore, a beggar, a bath attendant, a gold miner, but above all, a loser. His gaze remained naive and pure, like that of a dreamy boy. He did not notice his surroundings and lived on the cloudy, cheerful shores. Greene's romance was simple, cheerful, brilliant. She aroused desire in people varied life, full of risk and “a sense of the high,” a life characteristic of explorers, sailors and travelers. She evoked a stubborn need to see and know everything Earth, and this desire was noble and beautiful. With this, Green justified everything he wrote.”
Alexander Grinevsky served as a soldier in the 213th Orovaisky reserve infantry battalion, stationed in Penza. In 1902 he deserted, but was caught in Kamyshin. A rather remarkable official description of his appearance from that time has been preserved: “Height - 177.4. Eyes - light brown. Hair is light brown. Special features: on the chest there is a tattoo depicting a schooner with a bowsprit and a foremast carrying two sails."
Green escaped from the casemates, soon met the Social Revolutionaries and became involved in revolutionary activities. And almost immediately, in 1903, he was arrested for propaganda work among sailors in Sevastopol. For attempting to escape, Green was transferred to a maximum security prison. After 2 years, the writer was released under an amnesty. But his misadventures did not end there: in 1906, Green was arrested again (this time in St. Petersburg) and exiled for 4 years to Turinsk, Tobolsk province. From there he fled to Vyatka, and then to Moscow, using forged documents. It seems that during these years Greene found a way out for his inner desire for light precisely in revolutionary activity. And although he later did not like to remember this period of his life, his unstoppability and stubbornness in trying to achieve his goal are certainly impressive.
These difficult impressions are embodied in early stories writer, such as “The Winter's Tale” and “One Hundred Miles Along the River,” where the motive of escaping from prison or hard labor appears.
Romance in Greene’s work should be perceived not as a “departure from life,” but as a coming to it
M. Shcheglov in the article “The Ships of Alexander Green” notes: “In many of Green’s stories, the same psychological experience is staged in different variations - the collision of the romantic, full of mysterious symptoms of the soul of a person, capable of dreaming and languishing, and the limitations, even vulgarity of people every day , happy with everything and accustomed to everything... Romance in Green's work should essentially be perceived not as a “departure from life,” but as a coming to it - with all the charm and excitement of faith in the goodness and beauty of people, in the reflection of a different life on the shores serene seas, where joyfully slender ships sail..."
The pseudonym A. S. Green first appeared under the story “The Case,” dated 1907. A year later, Greene published his first collection, “The Invisible Cap,” with the subtitle “Stories about Revolutionaries.”
In 1909, Greene's first romantic novel, Reno Island, was born. This was followed by other works of this direction - “Lanphier Colony” (1910), “Zurbagan Shooter” (1913), “Captain Duke” (1915). In these works, a kind of fantastic space is formed, which will later receive the name “Greenland” - with the light hand of the literary critic K. Zelinsky. Researcher of the work of A. Green T. Zagvozdkina gives this space, this fictional country the following description: “Greenland is a universe, ... a universe that has its own spatio-temporal parameters, its own laws of development, its own ideas, heroes, plots and collisions. Greenland is an extremely general, romantically conventional myth of the twentieth century, which has a symbolic nature.”
Mental, as they would now say, “virtual” escapes to “Greenland” continued to save the writer during his service in the Red Army, where he became seriously ill and was sent to Petrograd. There, in 1920, Greene managed to get a room in the House of Arts, in which he lived from 1921 to 1924. The writer’s neighbors in the “House” were N. Gumilev, M. Shaginyan, V. Khodasevich, M. Lozinsky, O. Mandelstam.
Difficult living conditions, it seemed, only helped the writer to immerse himself in a different reality and create bright, magical worlds. V. Rozhdestvensky, one of Green’s neighbors, recalled: “There was nothing in the room except a small kitchen table and the narrow bed on which Green slept, covering himself with a shabby coat. Green wrote as a martyr, from morning until dusk, all shrouded in clouds of cigarette smoke... There was something in him at those moments reminiscent of the appearance of the unforgettable Knight of the Sad Image. He was just as selflessly and concentratedly immersed in his dream and did not notice the wretched surroundings.”
In 1923, the “extravaganza story” “Scarlet Sails” was published, which later became business card writer. It is believed that the prototype of the main character of the story with the fantastic name Assol was Green’s wife, Nina Nikolaevna. On their next wedding anniversary, the writer told her: “You gave me so much joy, laughter, tenderness and even reasons to approach life differently than I had before, that I stand as if in flowers and waves, and a flock of birds overhead. My heart is cheerful and light.”
The image of the dreamer Assol is not as simple as it might seem. Some believe that Greene paints us an infantile girl who cannot find contact with reality and believes only in illusion. However, Assol is an unusual person. She vigilantly and insightfully sees what most cannot see, the power of her faith is so strong that everything comes true. Here's the description inner life The heroine meets us in the story: “Unconsciously, through a kind of inspiration, she made at every step many ethereal-subtle discoveries, inexpressible, but important, like purity and warmth. Sometimes - and this continued for a number of days - she was even reborn; the physical confrontation of life fell away, like silence in the blow of a bow, and everything she saw, what she lived, what was around, became a lace of secrets in the image of everyday life.”
When a person’s soul conceals the seed of a miracle, give him this miracle... He will have a new soul and you will have a new one...
Priest Pafnuty Zhukov from Syktyvkar saw deeply religious content in Green’s romantic story: “Too much evidence that Scarlet Sails is a prophetic book. Here are its symbols: the sea is a symbol of eternity, the ship is the Church, the groom is the Savior stretching out his hands to us from the Cross, and the description of a blooming rose valley is a symbol of eternal bliss and communication with heavenly angels. In those days when priests were expelled and killed and the Gospel was burned on street fires, in Soviet Russia a man wrote books. He wrote anywhere - on a stone, on a box, on other people's tables in an unheated apartment. And then such an emptiness opened up in Green’s soul that he almost screamed in fear. We don’t know whether he was thinking about God at that moment, but we know that God remembered him and put prophetic words into his tormented heart, addressed to those who still believed that the world was not only blood, hunger, and betrayal. And here is this book before us. Let’s read her prophecy: “...One morning, in the distance of the sea, a scarlet sail will sparkle under the sun. The shining bulk of the scarlet sails of the white ship will move, cutting through the waves, straight towards you... and you will go forever to a brilliant country where the sun rises and where the stars will descend from the sky to congratulate you on your arrival.”
In 1924, Green left Petrograd and went south, first to Feodosia and then to Stary. This “Crimean” period became very fruitful for the writer: from his pen came the stories “The Shining World” (1924), “The Golden Chain” (1925), “Running on the Waves” (1928), “Jessie and Morgiana” (1929 ), a series of stories.
In his book, A. Varlamov cites an excerpt from Green’s letter to V. Kalitskaya: “... Religion, faith, God are phenomena that are somewhat distorted if we denote them in words.<…>I don’t know why, but for me it’s like this... Nina and I believe without trying to understand anything, since it’s impossible to understand. We are given only signs of the participation of the Higher Will in life. It’s not always possible to notice them, but if you learn to notice, many things that seemed incomprehensible in life suddenly find an explanation.”
Green to Dombrowski: “You better apologize to yourself for being an unbeliever. Although this will pass, of course. Will soon pass"
The same book contains an interesting fact: “To the writer Yuri Dombrovsky, who was sent to Green in 1930 for an interview from the editors of the magazine “Atheist,” Green replied: “That’s it, young man, I believe in God.” Dombrowski further writes that he became confused and began to apologize, to which Green good-naturedly said: “Well, what is this for? Better apologize to yourself for being an unbeliever. Although this will pass, of course. Will soon pass"".
There, in Old Crimea, Alexander Stepanovich and his wife often attended church. Nina Nikolaevna recalled: “The service is underway. There is not a soul praying in the church, only the priest and the sexton are celebrating the all-night vigil. The rays of the setting sun illuminate the church with slanting, pink stripes. Thoughtful and sad. We stand against the wall, pressed close to each other. The Church always excites me, revealing a soul that grieves and asks for forgiveness. For what? - Don't know. I stand without words, I pray with the mood of my soul, I ask with the words of God’s mercy for us, so tired of a hard life recent years. Tears are streaming down my face. Alexander Stepanovich presses my hand closer to him. His eyelids are drooping and tears are pouring from his eyes. The mouth is compressed mournfully and sternly.”
I have no evil or hatred towards any person in the world, I understand people and do not take offense at them.”
Two days before his death, Green asked for a priest to come to him. In his last letter to his wife, he said: “He invited me to forget all evil feelings and in my soul to reconcile with those whom I consider my enemies. I understood, Ninusha, who he was talking about, and answered that I have no evil or hatred towards a single person in the world, I understand people and am not offended by them. There are many sins in my life, and the most serious of them is debauchery, and I ask God to forgive me for it.”
K. Paustovsky, who did a lot to preserve the memory of Alexander Green, recalled his visit to the writer’s final refuge: “Before leaving Old Crimea, we went to Green’s grave. Stone, steppe flowers and a thorn bush with prickly needles - that was all. A barely noticeable path led to the grave. I thought that many years from now, when Green’s name is spoken with love, people will remember this grave, but they will have to move apart millions of dense branches and crush millions of tall flowers to find its gray and calm stone.”
Since 1941, Greene's books have ceased to be published. However, after 1953, his works became popular and were published in millions of copies - thanks to the efforts of K. Paustovsky, Y. Olesha and other writers. In 2000, on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the birth of A. S. Green, the Union of Writers of Russia, the administration of the city of Kirov and the city of Slobodsky established the annual Russian Literary Prize named after. A. Green for works for children and youth, imbued with the spirit of romance and hope. The writer’s birthday and memorial day in Old Crimea are invariably accompanied by celebrations, the so-called “Grinovsky readings”, and various events. In 2005, with the support of friends of Green's house, the annual celebration of raising the Scarlet Sails on Mount Agarmysh above the Old Crimea was revived. The sails are raised over the city by admirers of the writer’s work at dawn on August 23, Alexander Green’s birthday.
“When the days begin to gather dust and the colors fade, I take Green. I open it on any page. This is how the windows in the house are cleaned in the spring. Everything becomes light, bright, everything again mysteriously excites, as in childhood,” these words of Daniil Granin revive for us the memory of Alexander Green, a wonderful Russian writer.
Gifted Life
Korkin was an average man physical strength, frail build; his good eye, in contrast to the knocked-out, closed one, looked with redoubled intensity; he shaved, reminiscent of a tavern waiter. In general, his thin, crooked face did not make a terrible impression. A “junk”, a brown coat and a scarf were his permanent clothes. He never laughed, but spoke in a thin and quiet voice.
On Saturday evening, Korkin sat in a tavern and drank tea, thinking about where to spend the night. The police were looking for him. The door slammed with a breath of frosty steam; A drunken boy, about fourteen years old, came in. He looked around, saw Korkin and, winking, headed towards him.
Listen, they want you here, you have something to do,” he said, sitting down. - Fryer asked.
What is this?
“Some gentleman,” said the hooligan, “I hooked up with him at the station.” He needs to get someone. Looking for a master.
Let's go to Liverpool. He sat there in his office, drinking and running around. Kulachonko squeezed, cracked the table, and gritted his teeth. Psycho.
Let’s go,” said Korkin. He stood up, covered the lower part of his face with a scarf, moved the junk to his eyebrows, hastily finished smoking his cigarette and went out into the street with the hooligan.
A man of about thirty was walking around the faded, sour-dreary office of Liverpool, nervously rubbing his hands. He was wearing a short, waist-length, gray sheepskin coat; white lambskin on the sleeves and collar gave the sheepskin coat a foppish, ladylike appearance. The hat, also white, sat very coquettishly on his bearded, coyly thrown back head.
A gloomy face, with a protruding lower jaw, surrounded by a thick, wedge-cut, dark beard; sunken, restless eyes, a curled mustache and something dancing in all movements from a sliding, skating gait to twisting elbows - gave the general impression of a sleek, hysterical male.
Korkin knocked and entered. The unknown man blinked nervously.
“They called me on business,” said Korkin, looking at the bottles.
Yes, yes, to the point,” the unknown man spoke in a whisper. - Are you the one?
The same one.
You are drinking?
By the way he sharply said “you,” Korkin saw that the master despised him.
“You’re drinking,” Korkin answered impudently; sat down, poured it and drank.
The master was silent for some time, airily stroking his beard with his fingers.
Tell me one thing,” he said gloomily.
Tell me... why did you call me?
I need one person to be gone. For this you will receive a thousand rubles, and the deposit is now three hundred.
His left cheek twitched, his eyes swollen. Korkin drank the second portion and quipped:
Are you… weak… or what?..
What? What? - the master perked up.
Are you... cowardly?..
The master rushed to the window and, standing there half-turned, said:
“He’s a blockhead himself,” Korkin answered calmly.
The master seemed not to have heard this. Sitting down at the table, he explained to Korkin that he wished for the death of the student Pokrovsky; gave his address, described his appearance and paid three hundred rubles.
Pokrovsky will be ready in three days,” Korkin said dryly. - You'll find out from the newspapers.
They agreed where to meet for extra payment and parted.
Throughout the next day, Korkin lay in wait for the victim in vain. The student did not enter or leave.
By seven o'clock in the evening Korkin was tired and hungry. After some thought, he decided to postpone the matter until tomorrow. Taking one last look at the black arch of the gate, Korkin headed to the tavern. While eating, he noticed that he somehow felt uneasy: his joints ached, he shuddered, and wanted to stretch. The food seemed devoid of smell. However, it did not occur to Korkin that he had a cold.
The criminal finished his cabbage soup with disgust. Sitting over tea afterwards, he felt vaguely anxious. Restless thoughts wandered around, the bright light of the lamps irritated me. Korkin wanted to fall asleep, forgetting about the police, the iron weight prepared for Pokrovsky, and everything in the world. But the den where he spent the night opened at eleven.
Korkin had two free hours left. He decided to spend them in cinema. He was attacked by a strange frivolity, complete contempt for the detectives and dull indifference to everything.
He went into one of the Bioscopes. During the cinema, there was a so-called “Anatomical Museum”, a random collection of wax models of parts of the human body. Korkin came here too.
From the threshold, Korkin looked around the room. Behind the glass one could see something red, blue, pink and dark blue, and in each such unusually shaped object there was a hint of the body of Korkin himself.
Suddenly he experienced an inexplicable burden, a strong palpitation - either because he met the object of his “case” in his, so to speak, unusual, dispassionately intimate form, or because the models depicting the heart, lungs, liver, brain, eyes etc., watched with him strangers, far from suspecting that the same, only living mechanisms were destroyed by him, Korkin - he did not know. His sharp, new sensation was as if, being in a large society, he saw himself completely naked, undressed mysteriously and instantly.
Korkin came closer to the boxes; what was contained within them magically attracted him. What caught his eye first was the inscription: “ Circulatory system respiratory tract". He saw something like a tree without leaves, gray, with countless small branches. It seemed very fragile, exquisite. Then Korkin looked for a long time at the red skinless man; hundreds of oval muscles intertwined with one another, closely covering the bones with elastic outlines; they looked dry and proud; thousands of blue veins flowed through the red muscles.
Next to this box a large black eye glittered; behind his eyelashes and cornea, certain parts were visible, incomprehensible to Korkin, similar to a small machine, and he, looking at them blankly, remembered his broken eye, behind which, consequently, the same mysterious machine as the one he had seen was destroyed .
Korkin examined everything carefully: the brain, resembling a nucleus walnut; a section of the head along the profile line, where many compartments, voids and partitions were visible; lungs that looked like two large pink burdocks, and much more that left him with a feeling of terrible dumbfoundedness. All this seemed to him forbidden, accidentally and criminally spied on. A frightening secret was hidden in the chaste, waxy expressiveness of the models.
Korkin headed towards the exit. Passing by an old cabman standing next to a woman in a headscarf, he heard the cabman say:
Everything is shown as it is, Vavilovna. God's work... cunning... and-their - a cunning backwater! That's it... we are inside, that's it... yes!
A superstitious fear penetrated Korkin - a peasant’s fear, long muted by the city. In an environment where all phenomena of life and nature: the growth of herbs, bread, death and illness, misfortune and joy, are invariably associated with God and his will, such a superstitious attitude towards the obscure never disappears. Korkin walked down the street, barely overcoming fear. Finally, the fear passed, leaving fatigue and irritation.
Korkin was about to head to his lodgings for the night, but he remembered the student Pokrovsky. He was irresistibly drawn to see this man, at least briefly, not even knowing whether he would be able to kill him today; he felt a languid desire to touch the solution, the end of the “case”; enter into a circle of familiar, heavy excitement.
He approached that gate and, after waiting a little, suddenly came face to face with a tall, limping young man who came out from under the gate into the street.
“He,” having compared the signs, said Korkin and stretched out like a dog behind the student. There were no passers-by visible around.
“Amba! - Korkin thought, “I’ll hit him.” Trembling with chills, he took out the weight, but then, stopping his decision, it seemed to Korkin that if the student ran ahead, he would have huge eyes with mysterious machines covering his entire face. He also saw that the student’s body under the coat was devoid of skin, that the muscles and tendons, intertwined in rhythmic contractions, lived in a strict, difficult life, see Korkin and imperiously remove him.
Feeling that his hand could not be raised, that everything was scary and deaf around him, Korkin walked past the student, shouting through his teeth:
You live for nothing.
What's happened? - the student quickly asked, recoiling.
You live for nothing! - Korkin repeated and, already knowing, with dull resignation to what had happened, that the student would never be killed by him, - he turned into the alley.
Alexander Stepanovich Green was born on August 11 (23), 1880, in the city of Slobodskaya Vyatka province. His father, S. Grinevsky, a Polish nobleman, was a participant in the January Uprising, for which he was exiled to the Tomsk province.
The home education of the future writer was not consistent. Unreasonable caresses were abruptly replaced by severe punishments. Sometimes the child was left to his own devices.
In 1889, Sasha entered the preparatory class of the local real school. There the nickname “Green” was “born”, which later became his literary pseudonym.
Alexander studied poorly, and, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, was an “inveterate hooligan.”
When the young man was fifteen years old, his mother died of tuberculosis. Having married a second time, the father became estranged from his son, and young Green was forced to start an independent life.
The beginning of a creative journey
In 1906-1908 A turning point came in A. Green's life. In the summer of 1906, two stories came from his pen, which were published in the fall of the same year. The genre of early stories was defined as “propaganda brochure.”
They were dedicated to the soldiers of the tsarist army, who after the revolution of 1905 often staged bloody punitive raids.
The aspiring writer received a fee, but the entire circulation was destroyed.
At the beginning of 1908, Greene published his first collection. Most of the collection was dedicated to the Social Revolutionaries.
In 1910, the writer published a second collection. Most it consisted of stories written in the genre of realism. Having shown himself as a budding writer, he met M. Kuzmin, V. Bryusov, L. Andreev, A. Tolstoy. He became closest friends with A.I. Kuprin.
Mostly the writer published in the “small” press. His stories were published in Birzhevye Vedomosti, Niva, and Rodina. Sometimes he was published in “ Modern world” and “Russian Thought”.
In 1914, Alexander Green began collaborating with the New Satyricon magazine. This magazine published his collection “An Incident on Dog Street.”
After the outbreak of the First World War, another turning point emerged in the writer’s work. His stories began to be anti-war in nature.
Getting to know the content short biography Alexander Greene, you should know that he had enough difficult relationships with Soviet power. Condemning the Red Terror, he was sincerely perplexed, not understanding how the apologists of the new government could destroy violence with even more violence. He expressed this idea more than once in the New Satyricon.
As a result, the magazine, like other opposition publications, was closed. This happened in 1918. Green was arrested and barely escaped execution.
Continuation of literary activity
In early 1920, Greene began writing his first novel, The Shining World. After 1924, the work was published in Leningrad. His literary talent was most clearly manifested in the stories “Fandango”, “The Pied Piper”, “The Loquacious Brownie”.
In 1926, the writer finished work on his main novel, “Running on the Waves.” The work was published in 1928. With great difficulty, the “sunset” works of the outstanding writer, “The Road to Nowhere” and “Jesse and Morgiana” were published.
Death
Alexander Green passed away on July 8, 1932, in Stary Crimea. The cause of death was stomach cancer. The writer was buried in the city cemetery. His grave is located on a plot from where Greene’s beloved sea can be seen.
In 1934, Greene's last collection of stories, Fantastic Novels, was published.
Other biography options
- In his youth, Green was a desperate rebel. His relations with the royal authorities were very difficult. Since the end of 1916, he was hiding from persecution in Finland. He returned to Russia only after the February Revolution.
- Becoming famous writer, Greene got rid of the need. But the money did not stay in his hands. The writer was a fan card games and night revelry.
- In May 1932, a transfer was received from the Writers' Union addressed to the writer's wife, N. Green. The strange thing was that it was sent to the name of the “widow,” although Alexander Stepanovich was still alive. According to some reports, this happened against the backdrop of the writer’s mischief. A few days earlier, he sent a telegram with the words “Green is dead, send two hundred funerals.”
- The writer's wife, Nina, was his muse. It was she who became the prototype of Assol from “Scarlet Sails”.
- A minor planet was named in honor of the writer. In Riga there is Alexander Green Street. But it was named in honor of its full namesake, Alexander Stepanovich, who was also a writer.
