Alexander Kuprin - the greatest Russian writer, known for his novels, translations and short stories.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was born in the small town of Narovchat on September 7, 1870 into a noble family. At an early age he moved with his mother to Moscow due to the death of the boy's father. He received his secondary education in a regular boarding school, which was also a boarding school for street children. After 4 years of training, he is transferred to the cadet corps, also located in Moscow. The young man decides to pursue a military career and, after graduation, becomes a student at the Alexander Military School.

Having received his diploma, Kuprin goes to serve in the Dnepropetrovsk Infantry Regiment as a second lieutenant. But after 4 years he quits his service and visits several cities in the western provinces Russian Empire. It was difficult for him to find a permanent job due to lack of qualifications. Ivan Bunin, whom the writer met quite recently, pulls him out of a difficult financial situation. Bunin sends Kuprin to the capital and gets him a job in a large printing house. Alexander remained to live in Gatchina until the events of 1917. During the First World War, he voluntarily set up a hospital and helped treat wounded soldiers. Over the entire period of the early 20th century, Kuprin created several novels and short stories, the most famous of which were “White Poodle” and “Garnet Bracelet”.

IN last years existence of the Russian Empire, Kuprin adhered to communist views, ardently supporting the Bolshevik Party. He reacted positively to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas 2 and accepted the arrival of the new government in a good manner. A few years later, the classic became very disappointed in the new government and began to give speeches criticizing the new political system of Soviet Russia. In this regard, he had to take up arms and join the White movement.

But after the Red victory, Alexander immediately migrates abroad to avoid persecution. He chooses France as his place of residence. In exile he is actively involved literary activity and writes his next masterpieces: “The Wheel of Time”, “Junker”, “Zhaneta”. His works are in great demand among readers. Unfortunately, the enormous popularity of his work did not bring the writer a huge amount of financial resources. As a result, over 15 years he was able to accumulate an incredible list of debts and loans. The “money hole” and the inability to feed his own family forced him to become addicted to alcohol, which significantly derailed his life.

A few years later, his health rapidly begins to deteriorate. Suddenly, at the end of the 30s of the last century, Kuprin was invited back to Russia. Alexander returns. But due to alcoholism and worsening illnesses, the classic’s body could no longer create or work. Therefore, on August 25, 1938, Alexander Kuprin dies in Leningrad of natural causes.

The life and work of the writer Alexander Kuprin

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin is a famous Russian writer and translator. His works were realistic, and thus gained fame in many sectors of society.

Childhood and parents

Kuprin's childhood years are spent in Moscow, where he and his mother moved after his father's death.

Education

In 1887 Kuprin entered Alexandrovskoe military school.

He begins to experience various difficult moments, about which he writes his first works.

Kuprin wrote poetry well, but did not try to publish them or did not want to.

In 1890 he served in the infantry, where he wrote the works “Inquiry” and “In the Dark”.

Creativity flourishes

After 4 years, Kuprin leaves the regiment and begins his journey through different cities of Russia, looking at nature, people and acquiring new knowledge for his further works and stories.

Kuprin’s works are interesting because he described his experiences and feelings in them or they became the basis for new stories.

The very dawn of the writer’s creativity was at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1905, the story “The Duel” was published, which received enormous recognition from society. Then the most important work, “The Garnet Bracelet,” was born, which made Kuprin famous.

It is impossible not to highlight such a work as the story “The Pit,” which became scandalous and was not published due to pornographic scenes in the book.

Emigration

During the October Revolution, Kuprin emigrated to France because he did not want to support communism.

There he continues his activity as a writer, without which he could not imagine his life.

Return to Russia

Gradually, Kuprin begins to yearn for his homeland, to which he returned in poor health. After returning, he begins work on his latest work, entitled “Native Moscow.”

Personal life

Kuprin had two wives: with the first, Maria Davydova, the marriage ended after 5 years, but this marriage gave him a daughter, Lydia. The second wife was Elizaveta Moritsovna Heinrich, who gave him two daughters - Ksenia and Zinaida. The wife committed suicide during the siege of Leningrad, unable to survive such a terrible time.

Kuprin had no descendants, because his only grandson died in World War II.

Last years of life and death

The government benefited from Kuprin’s return to his homeland, because they wanted to create from him the image of a man who regretted his action, that he left his native land.

However, there were rumors that Kuprin was very ill, so there was information that his work “Native Moscow” was not written by him at all.

Message 3

The writer was born on September 7, 1870 in the Penza province in the city of Narovchat. Very early, my father passed away due to cholera. In 1874 his mother moved to Moscow and sent Alexander to a school where orphans studied. From 1880 to 1888 goes all the way to the Alexander Military School.

He began to become interested in literature during his cadet training. The story “The Last Debut” appeared in 1889. and the writer was punished with a reprimand. Having received the rank of second lieutenant in 1890-1894. was sent to serve in Kamenets-Podolsky. In 1901 retired. Lived in Kyiv, Petrograd, then in Sevastopol. All this time, the writer was haunted by poverty, poverty, he did not have a permanent job. These hardships contributed to the development of Kuprin as an outstanding writer. Made friends with Chekhov A.P., Bunin I.A. , these writers left an indelible imprint on the writer’s work. Stories and novellas are published: “The Duel”, “The Pit”, “Garnet Bracelet”.

1909 came, the year of recognition. Alexander Kuprin receives the Pushkin Prize. In addition to writing, he helps rebel sailors escape from the police. 1914 One of the most terrible events in human history begins - the First World War. Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin goes to the front as a volunteer, but does not stay there for long. He is being commissioned for health. In order to participate at least somehow in the fate of the country, he opens a soldier’s hospital in his house. But it didn't last long. Changes have begun in the country.

1917 time of revolution. Kuprin becomes close to the Socialist Revolutionaries and greets the revolution with joy. But its consequences did not live up to his hopes. The civil war that followed the revolution plunged him into depression. Decides to join N.N. Yudenich’s army.

1920 comes. Time for a change. Kuprin moves to France and writes his autobiography. The world saw it under the name "Junker". In 1937, the desire to see his homeland forces him to return home. New country, USSR, received Alexander Ivanovich calmly, without consequences. But the great writer did not have long to live.

The writer died at the age of 68 from esophageal cancer in 1938. August 25, in St. Petersburg, at that time Leningrad. He was buried at the Volkovsky cemetery, near the grave of I.S. Turgenev, now this is the Frunzensky district of St. Petersburg.

Report 4

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin is a man with an interesting destiny, a realist writer whose images are taken from life itself. The time of his creations fell on a difficult period for Russian history. The end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries affected the fate and works of the author.

Alexander Ivanovich, born in 1870, was a native of the Penza province of Narovchate. The future writer’s mother had Tatar roots, which Kuprin was later very proud of. Sometimes he dressed up in a Tatar robe and wore a skullcap, going out in such clothes.

The boy was not yet a year old when his father passed away; his mother was forced to send her son to an orphanage, moving to Moscow, where she was a native. For little Alexander, the boarding house was a place of despondency and oppression.

After graduating from college, Kuprin entered a military gymnasium, after which in 1887 he continued his studies at the Alexander Military School. The writer described the events of the period of his life in the work “Junker”. It was during his studies that Alexander Ivanovich tried to write. The first published story, “The Last Debut,” was written in 1889.

After graduating from college in 1890. Kuprin served for four years in an infantry regiment. The rich life experience acquired in the service more than once became the theme of his works. At the same time, the writer publishes his works in the magazine “Russian Wealth”. During this period, the following films were released: “Inquiry”, “In the Dark”, “Moonlight”, “Hike”, “Night Shift” and many others.

Having completed his military service, Kuprin lives in Kyiv and is trying to decide on his future profession. The writer tried many works. He was a factory worker, a circus wrestler, a small-time journalist, a land surveyor, a psalm-reader, an actor, and a pilot. In total, I tried more than 20 professions. Everywhere he was interested, everywhere he was surrounded by people who became heroes of Kuprin’s works. Alexander Ivanovich's wanderings brought him to St. Petersburg, where, on the recommendation of Ivan Bunin, he got a permanent job in the editorial office of the Magazine for Everyone.

The writer's first wife was Maria Karlovna, whose wedding took place in the winter of 1902. A year later, a daughter, Lydia, appeared in the family, who later gave Kuprin a grandson, Alexei.

The story “The Duel,” published in 1905, brought enormous success to Alexander Ivanovich. Reveler, an adventurer by nature, was always the center of attention. Perhaps this was the reason for the divorce from his first wife in 1909. In the same year, the writer remarried Elizaveta Moritsovna, from whom two girls were born, the youngest of whom died at an early age. Neither the daughter nor the grandson left children, so there are no direct descendants of the writer.

The pre-revolutionary period was distinguished by the publication of most of Kuprin's works. Among the written works: “Garnet Bracelet”, “Liquid Sun”, “Gambrinus”.

In 1911 moves to Gatchina, where during the First World War he opens a hospital for wounded military personnel in his house. In 1914 was mobilized and sent to serve in Finland, but was dismissed for health reasons.

Initially, Kuprin greeted with joy the news of Tsar Nicholas II's abdication from the throne. However, faced with the dictatorship of the authorities, he was disappointed. During the Civil War he joined the White Guards and after the defeat was forced to leave for Paris.

Poverty and a tendency toward alcoholism forced Kuprin to return in 1937. to the homeland. By this period, the writer was already very ill and could not engage in creative work. Alexander Ivanovich died in 1938.

Message about Kuprin

Popular Russian authors are different from any other authors, since they are usually adherents of the classical direction of literature. It is not for nothing that these writers have become one of the most recognizable faces, both in their homeland and far abroad. Usually these are writers who, from childhood, developed their writing talent throughout their lives, while meeting the key people of their time, which also brought them considerable popularity, which made them even more successful. Thus, such people became famous and successful, but their immense talent also played an important role in their development. An excellent example of such an author is the writer Kuprin.

Alexander Kuprin is a very famous author, who at one time was widely read, both in Russia and far abroad. This author wrote quite unique and interesting works, in which the author revealed the most most interesting topics, through which the author also conveyed his point of view, which he shared with his readers. Kuprin’s works also contained various artistic techniques that amazed their readers with their genius, because Kuprin was a true master of words who wrote in a way that no other author, a classical author, to be more precise, could write. Even him classical works were filled with quite an interesting plot.

Alexander Kuprin September 7 in the city of Narovchat. He was born, like most famous classical writers, into a noble family, in which the boy was very much loved and cared for from childhood. And from childhood, the boy was noticed to have a strong penchant for literature. From childhood, he began to show quite good skills in literature, as well as in writing various works and poems. Later he went to get an education, which he successfully received and began to work on himself and his creativity. While working on it, he was able to develop his own style of writing, and thus he became one of the most read authors of his time, if not the most read. He lived good life Having written a huge number of works, he finished it in Leningrad on August 25, 1938. His entire family mourned his loss, but he died of natural causes, or, more simply, of old age.

Yuri Pavlovich Kazakov (1927-1982) is one of the writers of the Soviet period of national history. Kazakov is a native of Moscow and his childhood years in an ordinary simple family pass

Unfortunately, such a problem as a fire is inevitable. Sometimes, even when all safety rules are followed, accidents occur. In such cases, special people are needed, daredevils who

“Writer of Balaklava fishermen,
Friend of silence, comfort, sea, villager,
Shady Gatchina homeowner,
He is dear to us with the simplicity of his heartfelt words..."
From a poem by Igor Severyanin in memory of Kuprin

"But quietly from heaven
He looks at us all...
He is with us.
We are together
In "paradise lost"..."
From a poem by Tatyana Perova in memory of Kuprin

Biography

The small town of Proskurov in the Podolsk province, where the young lieutenant Alexander Kuprin was serving, was full of melancholy and boredom. In order to somehow embellish the dull everyday life, Kuprin plunges headlong into cards, carousing and love affairs. Nothing and no one can curb his hot temper... no one except his first love - a timid orphan girl, definitely the most charming in the entire province. Kuprin is ready to give up the wild life and even get married, but there is one “but”: they agree to give up the girl for him only if Alexander graduates from the Academy of the General Staff. Well, the young man packs his bags and goes to St. Petersburg to take his exams. True, he fails to reach his destination safely. In Kyiv, Kuprin meets friends and goes with them to a floating restaurant. There the guys quarrel on such a scale that they attract the attention of the police supervisor. He makes a remark to the noisy company, for which he is immediately thrown out the window. Such behavior by a future officer is not according to his rank: Kuprin is prohibited from entering the Academy. Now about military career, and one can only dream about the hand of one’s beloved, but life, meanwhile, goes on.

Having no civilian profession, Kuprin wanders around the south of Russia, testing himself as a fisherman, circus wrestler, bailiff, actor, journalist, digger, psalm-reader, hunter... The motto of Kuprin’s life actually becomes the words of one of the characters he created from the story “The Pit” : “By God, I would like to become a horse, a plant or a fish for a few days, or be a woman and experience childbirth; I would like to live my inner life and see the world through the eyes of every person I meet.” In a word, Alexander experiences life in all its manifestations, not forgetting, by the way, about literary activity. True, Kuprin does not spend a long time at his pen, but works only according to his mood, from time to time. However, the writer’s creative vocation intensifies with his move to St. Petersburg and his acquaintance with the local bohemia - Bunin, Chaliapin, Averchenko.

Here, in St. Petersburg, Kuprin meets his first wife, Maria Davydova. True, they did not have a happy union: Davydova deeply appreciated her husband’s talent, but could hardly tolerate his drunken antics, which often went beyond what was permitted. Although creative career Kuprin's marriage only benefited him. In particular, his best story “The Duel” would hardly have seen the light of day without Davydova’s pressure.

Kuprin's second marriage turned out to be much more successful. WITH new love- Elizaveta Heinrich - Kuprin got together before he received a divorce from Davydova. However, in the person of his second wife, Alexander Ivanovich finds true love and a faithful life partner. Only now does he realize the delights of quiet family happiness: a cozy house with five rooms, children’s laughter, gardening in the summer, skiing in the winter... Kuprin gives up drinking and brawls, writes a lot and, it would seem, now nothing can prevent his happiness. But war breaks out in the world, and then the October Revolution, which forces the Kuprins to leave their cozy family nest and go in search of happiness to distant Paris.

The Kuprins lived in France for seventeen long years and, in the end, homesickness took its toll. Alexander Ivanovich, already a gray-haired old man and, obviously, anticipating his imminent death, once declared that he was ready to go to Moscow, even on foot. Meanwhile, his health was seriously deteriorating. “Elizaveta Moritsovna Kuprina took her sick old husband home. She was exhausted, looking for ways to save him from hopeless poverty... The most respected, beloved, famous Russian writer could no longer work because he was very, very sick, and everyone knew about it,” the Russian poetess Teffi would later write. . A year after returning to Russia, the writer died. The cause of Kuprin's death was acute pneumonia, contracted while watching the parade on Red Square. “Kulunchakovskaya Tatar blood” has cooled forever. Kuprin's death was reported by TASS and a number of popular newspapers. The funeral of Alexander Kuprin took place on the Literary Bridge of the Volkovsky Cemetery in St. Petersburg. Kuprin's grave is located near the resting places of Turgenev, Mamin-Sibiryak and Garin-Mikhailovsky.

Life line

September 7, 1870 Date of birth of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin.
1876 Young Alexander is placed in the Moscow Razumovsky orphanage.
1880 Kuprin enters the Second Moscow Cadet Corps.
1887 The young man is enrolled in the Alexander Military School.
1889 The writer's first story, “The Last Debut,” appears.
1890 Alexander Kuprin was released into the 46th Dnieper Infantry Regiment with the rank of second lieutenant.
1894 Kuprin resigns and moves to Kyiv.
1901 The writer moves to St. Petersburg and receives the position of secretary at the “Magazine for Everyone.”
1902 Alexander Kuprin marries Maria Davydova.
1905 The release of Kuprin's most significant work - the story "The Duel".
1909 Kuprin receives a divorce from Davydova and marries Elizaveta Heinrich.
1919 The writer and his wife emigrate to Paris.
1937 At the invitation of the USSR government, Kuprin and his wife return to their homeland.
August 25, 1938 Date of death of Kuprin.
August 27, 1938 Date of Kuprin's funeral.

Memorable places

1. The city of Narovchat, where Alexander Kuprin was born.
2. Alexander Military School (now the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces), where Alexander spent his military youth.
3. The city of Proskurov (now Khmelnitsky), where Kuprin served his military service.
4. House on Podol in Kyiv, where Alexander Kuprin lived in 1894-1896.
5. Restaurant “Vena” in St. Petersburg (now the mini-hotel “Old Vienna”), where Kuprin liked to spend time.
6. The city of Gatchina, where Alexander Kuprin lived with his wife Elizaveta Heinrich and children.
7. The city of Paris, where the Kuprins lived in 1919-1937.
8. Monument to Kuprin in Balaklava.
9. Kuprin’s sister’s house in Kolomna, where Alexander Ivanovich often visited.
10. Literary bridges at the Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg, where Kuprin is buried.

Episodes of life

In 1905, Alexander Kuprin witnessed the suppression of the Sevastopol uprising. The burning cruiser "Ochakov" was shot from guns, and the sailors fleeing by swimming were mercilessly showered with lead hail. On that sad day, Kuprin managed to help several sailors who miraculously reached the shore. The writer got them civilian clothes and even diverted the attention of the police so that they could freely get out of the danger zone.

One day, having received a large advance, Alexander Ivanovich began to drink heavily. In a drunken stupor, he dragged a dubious group of drinking buddies into the house where his family lived, and, in fact, the fun continued. Kuprin's wife endured the revelry for a long time, but a flaming match dropped on her dress was the last straw. In a fit of fury, Davydova broke a carafe of water on her husband’s head. The husband could not bear the insult. He left the house, scribbling on a piece of paper: “It’s all over between us. We won't see each other again."

Covenant

“Language is the history of a people. Language is the path of civilization and culture. Therefore, studying and preserving the Russian language is not an idle activity because there is nothing to do, but an urgent necessity.”

Documentary film “Kuprin’s Ruby Bracelet” from State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company “Culture”

Condolences

“Kuprin is a bright, healthy talent.”
Maxim Gorky, writer

“By the scope of his talent, by his living language, Kuprin graduated not only from the ‘literary conservatory’, but also from several literary academies.”
Konstantin Paustovsky, writer

“He was a romantic. He was the captain of juvenile novels, sea ​​wolf with a snorkel in his teeth, a regular at the port pubs. He felt brave and strong, rough in appearance and poetically tender in spirit.”
Teffi, poetess

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin is a famous writer, a classic of Russian literature, whose most significant works are “The Junkers”, “The Duel”, “The Pit”, “The Garnet Bracelet” and “The White Poodle”. Kuprin’s short stories about Russian life, emigration, and animals are also considered high art.

Alexander was born in the district town of Narovchat, which is located in the Penza region. But the writer spent his childhood and youth in Moscow. The fact is that Kuprin’s father, hereditary nobleman Ivan Ivanovich, died a year after his birth. Lyubov Alekseevna’s mother, who also came from a noble family, had to move to a large city, where it was much easier for her to give her son upbringing and education.

Already at the age of 6, Kuprin was sent to the Moscow Razumovsky boarding school, which operated on the principle of an orphanage. After 4 years, Alexander was transferred to the Second Moscow Cadet Corps, after which the young man entered the Alexander Military School. Kuprin graduated with the rank of second lieutenant and served for exactly 4 years in the Dnieper Infantry Regiment.

After his resignation, the 24-year-old young man leaves for Kyiv, then to Odessa, Sevastopol and other cities of the Russian Empire. The problem was that Alexander did not have any civilian specialty. Only after meeting him does he manage to find a permanent job: Kuprin goes to St. Petersburg and gets a job at the “Magazine for Everyone.” Later he would settle in Gatchina, where during the First World War he would maintain a military hospital at his own expense.

Alexander Kuprin enthusiastically accepted the abdication of the Tsar's power. After the arrival of the Bolsheviks, he even personally approached with a proposal to publish a special newspaper for the village “Zemlya”. But soon, seeing that the new government was imposing a dictatorship on the country, he became completely disillusioned with it.

It is Kuprin who owns the derogatory name Soviet Union- “Sovdepiya”, which will become firmly established in the jargon. During the Civil War, he volunteered to join the White Army, and after a major defeat he went abroad - first to Finland and then to France.

By the early 30s, Kuprin was mired in debt and could not provide his family with even the most necessary things. In addition, the writer did not find anything better than to look for a way out of a difficult situation in a bottle. As a result, the only solution was to return to his homeland, which he personally supported in 1937.

Books

Alexander Kuprin began writing in his final years in the cadet corps, and his first attempts at writing were in the poetic genre. Unfortunately, the writer never published his poetry. And his first published story was “The Last Debut.” Later, his story “In the Dark” and a number of stories on military topics were published in magazines.

In general, Kuprin devotes a lot of space to the theme of the army, especially in early work. Suffice it to recall his famous autobiographical novel “Junkers” and the story that preceded it “At the Turning Point”, also published as “Cadets”.

The dawn of Alexander Ivanovich as a writer came at the beginning of the 20th century. He published the story “The White Poodle,” which later became a classic of children’s literature, his memoirs about his trip to Odessa, “Gambrinus,” and, probably, his most popular work, the story “The Duel.” At the same time, such creations as “Liquid Sun”, “Garnet Bracelet”, and stories about animals were released.

Separately, it is necessary to say about one of the most scandalous works of Russian literature of that period - the story “The Pit” about the life and destinies of Russian prostitutes. The book was mercilessly criticized, paradoxically, for “excessive naturalism and realism.” The first edition of "The Pit" was withdrawn from publication as pornographic.

In exile, Alexander Kuprin wrote a lot, almost all of his works were popular with readers. In France, he created four major works - “The Dome of St. Isaac of Dalmatia”, “The Wheel of Time”, “Junker” and “Zhanet”, as well as a large number of short stories, including the philosophical parable about beauty “Blue Star”.

Personal life

The first wife of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was young Maria Davydova, the daughter of the famous cellist Karl Davydov. The marriage lasted only five years, but during this time the couple had a daughter, Lydia. The fate of this girl was tragic - she died shortly after giving birth to her son at the age of 21.

The writer married his second wife Elizaveta Moritsovna in 1909, although they had been living together for two years by that time. They had two daughters - Ksenia, who later became an actress and model, and Zinaida, who died at three years old from a complex form of pneumonia. The wife outlived Alexander Ivanovich by 4 years. She committed suicide during the siege of Leningrad, unable to withstand the constant bombing and endless hunger.

Since Kuprin’s only grandson, Alexei Egorov, died due to injuries received during World War II, the line of the famous writer was interrupted, and today his direct descendants do not exist.

Death

Alexander Kuprin returned to Russia with his health already in poor health. He was addicted to alcohol, plus the elderly man was quickly losing his sight. The writer hoped that he would be able to return to work in his homeland, but his health did not allow this.

A year later, while watching a military parade on Red Square, Alexander Ivanovich contracted pneumonia, which was also aggravated by esophageal cancer. On August 25, 1938, the famous writer’s heart stopped forever.

Kuprin’s grave is located on the Literary Bridge of the Volkovsky Cemetery, not far from the burial place of another Russian classic -.

Bibliography

• 1892 - “In the Dark”
• 1898 - “Olesya”
• 1900 - “At the Turning Point” (“Cadets”)
• 1905 - “Duel”
• 1907 - "Gambrinus"
• 1910 - “Garnet Bracelet”
• 1913 - “Liquid Sun”
• 1915 - “The Pit”
• 1928 - “Junkers”
• 1933 - “Zhaneta”

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin is a famous realist writer whose works resonated in the hearts of readers. His work was distinguished by the fact that he sought not only to accurately reflect events, but most of all by the fact that Kuprina inner world the person was interested in much more than just a reliable description. A brief biography of Kuprin will be described below: childhood, teenage years, creative activity.

The writer's childhood

Kuprin's childhood could not be called carefree. The writer was born on August 26, 1870 in the Penza province. Kuprin's parents were: hereditary nobleman I. I. Kuprin, who held the position of official, and L. A. Kulunchakova, who came from a family of Tatar princes. The writer was always proud of his origins on his mother’s side, and Tatar features were visible in his appearance.

A year later, Alexander Ivanovich’s father died, and the writer’s mother was left with two daughters and a young son in her arms without any financial support. Then the proud Lyubov Alekseevna had to humiliate herself in front of senior officials in order to place her daughters in a government boarding school. She herself, taking her son with her, moved to Moscow and got a job in the Widow's House, in which the future writer lived with her for two years.

Later he was enrolled in the state account of the Moscow Guardianship Council in an orphan school. Kuprin's childhood there was joyless, full of sorrow and reflections on the fact that they are trying to suppress a person's sense of self-worth. After this school, Alexander entered a military gymnasium, which was later transformed into a cadet corps. These were the prerequisites for the development of an officer's career.

The writer's youth

Kuprin’s childhood was not simple, and his studies in cadet corps It wasn’t easy either. But it was then that he first had a desire to engage in literature and he began to write his first poems. Of course, the strict living conditions of the cadets and military drill tempered the character of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin and strengthened his will. Later, his memories of his childhood and youth will be reflected in the works “Cadets”, “Brave Fugitives”, “Junkers”. It’s not for nothing that the writer always emphasized that his works are largely autobiographical.

Kuprin's military youth began with his admission to the Moscow Alexander Military School, after which he received the rank of second lieutenant. Then he went to serve in an infantry regiment and visited small provincial towns. Kuprin not only performed his official duties, but also studied all aspects of army life. Constant drill, injustice, cruelty - all this was reflected in his stories, such as, for example, “The Lilac Bush”, “Hike”, the story “The Last Duel”, thanks to which he gained all-Russian fame.

Beginning of a literary career

His entry into the ranks of writers dates back to 1889, when his story “The Last Debut” was published. Kuprin later said that when he left military service, the most difficult thing for him was that he had no knowledge. Therefore, Alexander Ivanovich began to thoroughly study life and read books.

The future famous Russian writer Kuprin began to travel throughout the country and tried himself in many professions. But he did this not because he could not decide on his future type of activity, but because he was interested in it. Kuprin wanted to thoroughly study the life and everyday life of people, their characters, in order to reflect these observations in his stories.

In addition to the fact that the writer studied life, he took his first steps in the literary field - he published articles, wrote feuilletons, and essays. A significant event in his life was his collaboration with the authoritative magazine "Russian Wealth". It was there that “In the Dark” and “Inquiry” were published in the period from 1893 to 1895. During the same period, Kuprin met I. A. Bunin, A. P. Chekhov and M. Gorky.

In 1896, Kuprin’s first book, “Kyiv Types,” a collection of his essays, was published, and the story “Moloch” was published. A year later, a collection of short stories, “Miniatures,” was published, which Kuprin presented to Chekhov.

About the story "Moloch"

Kuprin's stories were distinguished by the fact that the central place was given not to politics, but to the emotional experiences of the characters. But this does not mean that the writer was not concerned about the plight of the ordinary population. The story “Moloch,” which brought the young writer fame, tells of difficult, even disastrous, working conditions for workers at a large steel mill.

It is no coincidence that the work received this name: the writer compares this enterprise with the pagan god, Moloch, who requires constant human sacrifice. The aggravation of social conflict (revolt of workers against management) was not the main thing in the work. Kuprin was more interested in how the modern bourgeoisie can have a detrimental influence on a person. Already in this work one can notice the writer’s interest in a person’s personality, his experiences, and thoughts. Kuprin wanted to show the reader how a person feels when faced with social injustice.

A Tale of Love - "Olesya"

No less works have been written about love. Love occupied a special place in Kuprin’s work. He always wrote about her touchingly and reverently. His heroes are people who are capable of experiencing, experiencing sincere feelings. One of these stories is “Olesya,” written in 1898.

All created images have a poetic character, especially the image main character Olesya. The work talks about tragic love between the girl and the narrator, Ivan Timofeevich, an aspiring writer. He came to the wilderness, to Polesie, to get acquainted with the way of life of inhabitants unknown to him, their legends and traditions.

Olesya turned out to be a Polesie witch, but she has nothing in common with the usual image of such women. In her, beauty is combined with inner strength, nobility, a little naivety, but at the same time, a strong will and a little bit of authority are felt in her. And her fortune telling is not connected with cards or other forces, but with the fact that she immediately recognizes the character of Ivan Timofeevich.

The love between the characters is sincere, all-consuming, noble. After all, Olesya does not agree to marry him, because she considers herself no equal to him. The story ends sadly: Ivan did not manage to see Olesya a second time, and he only had red beads as a memory of her. And all other works on a love theme are distinguished by the same purity, sincerity and nobility.

"Duel"

The work that brought fame to the writer and occupied an important place in Kuprin’s work was “The Duel.” It was published in May 1905, already at the end of the Russo-Japanese War. A.I. Kuprin wrote the whole truth of army morals using the example of one regiment located in a provincial town. The central theme of the work is the formation of personality, its spiritual awakening using the example of the hero Romashov.

The “duel” can also be explained as a personal battle between the writer and the stultifying everyday life of the tsarist army, which destroys all that is best in a person. This work has become one of the most famous, despite the fact that the ending is tragic. The ending of the work reflects the realities that existed at that time in the tsarist army.

Psychological side of works

In the stories, Kuprin appears as an expert psychological analysis precisely because he always sought to understand what motivates a person, what feelings control him. In 1905, the writer went to Balaklava and from there traveled to Sevastopol to take notes on the events that took place on the mutinous cruiser Ochakov.

After the publication of his essay "Events in Sevastopol", he was expelled from the city and forbidden to come there. During his stay there, Kuprin creates the story “The Listriginovs,” where the main characters are simple fishermen. The writer describes their hard work and character, which were close in spirit to the writer himself.

In the story "Staff Captain Rybnikov" the writer's psychological talent is fully revealed. A journalist wages a hidden struggle with a secret agent of Japanese intelligence. And not for the purpose of exposing him, but in order to understand what a person feels, what motivates him, what internal struggle happens in it. This story was highly appreciated by readers and critics.

Love theme

Works on a love theme occupied a special place in the works of writers. But this feeling was not passionate and all-consuming; rather, he described selfless, selfless, faithful love. Among the most famous works"Shulamith" and "Garnet Bracelet".

It is this kind of selfless, perhaps even sacrificial love that is perceived by the heroes as the highest happiness. That is, a person’s spiritual strength lies in the fact that one must be able to put the happiness of another person above one’s own well-being. Only such love can bring true joy and interest in life.

Writer's personal life

A.I. Kuprin was married twice. His first wife was Maria Davydova, the daughter of a famous cellist. But the marriage lasted only 5 years, but during this time they had a daughter, Lydia. Kuprin’s second wife was Elizaveta Moritsovna-Heinrich, whom he married in 1909, although before this event they had already lived together for two years. They had two girls - Ksenia (in the future - a famous model and artist) and Zinaida (who died at the age of three.) The wife outlived Kuprin by 4 years and committed suicide during the siege of Leningrad.

Emigration

The writer took part in the war of 1914, but due to illness he had to return to Gatchina, where he made a hospital for wounded soldiers from his house. Kuprin was waiting for the February Revolution, but, like the majority, he did not accept the methods that the Bolsheviks used to assert their power.

After the White Army was defeated, the Kuprin family went to Estonia, then to Finland. In 1920 he came to Paris at the invitation of I. A. Bunin. The years spent during emigration were fruitful. The works he wrote were popular with the public. But, despite this, Kuprin became increasingly homesick for Russia, and in 1936 the writer decided to return to his homeland.

The last years of the writer's life

Just as Kuprin’s childhood was not easy, the last years of his life were not easy. His return to the USSR in 1937 caused a lot of noise. On May 31, 1937, he was met by a solemn procession, which included famous writers and admirers of his work. Already at that time, Kuprin had serious health problems, but he hoped that in his homeland he would be able to regain his strength and continue to engage in literary activities. But on August 25, 1938, Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin passed away.

A.I. Kuprin was not just a writer who talked about various events. He studied human nature and sought to understand the character of every person he met. Therefore, reading his stories, readers empathize with the characters, feel sad and rejoice with them. Creativity of A.I. Kuprin occupies a special place in Russian literature.

Alexander KUPRIN (1870-1938)

1. Youth and early work of Kuprin

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin had a bright, original talent, which was highly valued by L. Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky. The attractive power of his talent lies in the capacity and vitality of the narrative, the entertaining nature of the plots, the naturalness and ease of the language, and the vivid imagery. Kuprin's works attract us not only with their artistic skill, but also with their humanistic pathos and great love of life.

Kuprin was born on August 26 (September 7), 1870 in the city of Narovchat, Penza province, in the family of a district clerk. The father died when the child was in his second year. His mother moved to Moscow, where poverty forced her to live in a widow's house and send her son to an orphanage. The writer's childhood and teenage years were spent in closed military-type educational institutions: in a military gymnasium, and then in a cadet school in Moscow. In 1890, after graduating from military school, Kuprin served in the army with the rank of lieutenant. An attempt to enter the General Staff Academy in 1893 was unsuccessful for Kuprin, and in 1894 he resigned. The next few years in Kuprin’s life were a period of numerous moves and changes in various types of activities. He worked as a reporter in Kyiv newspapers, served in an office in Moscow, as a manager of an estate in the Volyn province, as a prompter in a provincial troupe, tried many more professions, met people of the most diverse specialties, views and life destinies.

Like many writers, A. I. Kuprin began his creative activity like a poet. Among Kuprin’s poetic experiments there are 2-3 dozen that are quite good in execution and, most importantly, genuinely sincere in revealing human feelings and moods. This especially applies to his humorous poems - from the thorny “Ode to Katkov,” written in adolescence, to numerous epigrams, literary parodies, and humorous impromptu poems. Kuprin never stopped writing poetry all his life. However, he found his true calling in prose. In 1889, while a student at a military school, he published his first story, “The Last Debut,” and was sent to a punishment cell for violating the rules of the school, whose students were prohibited from appearing in print.

Kuprin's work in journalism gave him a lot. In the 90s, he published feuilletons, notes, court chronicles, literary criticism, and travel correspondence on the pages of provincial newspapers.

In 1896, Kuprin’s first book was published - a collection of essays and feuilletons “Kyiv Types”, in 1897 a book of stories “Miniatures” was published, which included early stories writers published in newspapers. The writer himself spoke of these works as “the first childish steps on literary road" But they were the first school of the future recognized master of the short story and artistic essay.

2. Analysis of the story “Moloch”

Working in the forge shop of one of the metallurgical plants in Donbass introduced Kuprin to work, life and the customs of the working environment. He wrote essays “Yuzovsky Plant”, “In the Main Mine”, “Rail Rolling Plant”. These essays were preparation for the creation of the story “Moloch”, published in the December issue of the magazine “Russian Wealth” for 1896.

In "Moloch" Kuprin mercilessly exposed the inhuman essence of emerging capitalism. The title of the story itself is symbolic. Moloch, according to the concepts of the ancient Phoenicians, was the god of the sun, to whom human sacrifices were made. It is with this that the writer compares capitalism. Only Moloch-capitalism is even more cruel. If one human victim per year was sacrificed to Moloch the god, then Moloch capitalism devours much more. The hero of the story, engineer Bobrov, calculated that at the plant where he works, every two days of work “devours a whole person.” "Damn it! - exclaims the engineer, excited by this conclusion, in a conversation with his friend Dr. Goldberg. - Do you remember from the Bible that some Assyrians or Moabites made human sacrifices to their gods? But these copper gentlemen, Moloch and Dagon, would blush with shame and resentment in front of the figures that I have just cited.” This is how the image of the bloodthirsty god Moloch appears on the pages of the story, which, as a symbol, runs through the entire work. The story is also interesting because here for the first time in Kuprin’s work the image of an intellectual truth-seeker appears.

The central character of the story, engineer Andrei Ilyich Bobrov, is such a seeker of truth. He likens himself to a person “who was flayed alive” - he is a soft, sensitive, sincere person, a dreamer and a lover of truth. He does not want to put up with violence and the hypocritical morality that covers this violence. He stands up for purity, honesty in relationships between people, for respect for human dignity. He is sincerely outraged that the individual is becoming a toy in the hands of a bunch of egoists, demagogues and crooks.

However, as Kuprin shows, Bobrov’s protest has no practical way out, because he is a weak, neurasthenic person, incapable of struggle and action. His outbursts of indignation end with a recognition of his own powerlessness: “You have neither the determination nor the strength for this... Tomorrow you will again be prudent and weak.” The reason for Bobrov's weakness is that he feels alone in his outrage at injustice. He dreams of a life based on pure relationships between people. But he doesn’t know how to achieve such a life. The author himself does not answer this question.

We must not forget that Bobrov’s protest is largely determined by a personal drama - the loss of his beloved girl, who, seduced by wealth, sold herself to a capitalist and also became a victim of Moloch. All this does not detract, however, from the main thing that characterizes this hero - his subjective honesty, hatred of all kinds of injustice. The ending of Bobrov's life is tragic. Internally broken, devastated, he ends his life suicide.

In the story, the millionaire Kvashnin is the personification of the destructive power of the chistogan. This is a living embodiment of the bloodthirsty god Moloch, which is emphasized by the very portrait of Kvashnin: “Kvashnin sat in a chair, spreading his colossal legs and sticking his stomach forward, looking like a Japanese idol of rough work.” Kvashnin is the antipode of Bobrov, and he is portrayed by the author in sharply negative tones. Kvashnin makes any deals with his conscience, any immoral act, even a crime, in order to satisfy his own. whims and desires. He makes the girl he likes, Nina Zinenko, Bobrov’s fiancée, his kept woman.

The corrupting power of Moloch is especially strongly shown in the fate of people trying to get into the ranks of the “chosen ones.” Such, for example, is the director of the Shelkovnikov plant, who only nominally manages the plant, subordinate in everything to the protege of a foreign company - the Belgian Andrea. This is one of Bobrov’s colleagues, Svezhevsky, who dreams of becoming a millionaire by the age of forty and is ready to do anything in the name of this.

The main thing that characterizes these people is immorality, lies, adventurism, which have long become the norm of behavior. Kvashnin himself lies, pretending to be an expert in the business he leads. Shelkovnikov lies, pretending that it is he who runs the plant. Nina's mother lies, hiding the secret of her daughter's birth. Svezhevsky lies, and Faya plays the role of Nina’s groom. Fake directors, fake fathers, fake husbands - this, according to Kuprin, is a manifestation of the general vulgarity, falsehood and lies of life, which the author and his positive hero cannot put up with.

The story is not free, especially in the history of the relationship between Bobrov, Nina and Kvashnin, from a touch of melodrama; the image of Kvashnin is devoid of psychological persuasiveness. And yet, “Moloch” was not an ordinary event in the work of the novice prose writer. The search for moral values, a person of spiritual purity, outlined here, will become the main one for Kuprin’s further work.

Maturity usually comes to a writer as a result of the many-sided experiences of his own life. Kuprin's work confirms this. He felt confident only when he stood firmly on the ground of reality and portrayed what he knew perfectly well. The words of one of the heroes of Kuprin’s “The Pit”: “By God, I would like to become a horse, a plant or a fish for a few days, or be a woman and experience childbirth; I would like to live my inner life and look at the world through the eyes of every person I meet,” sound truly autobiographical. Kuprin tried to explore everything as much as possible, to experience everything for himself. This inherent desire for him as a person and a writer to be actively involved in everything that happens around him led to the appearance in his early work of works on a wide variety of subjects, in which a rich gallery of human characters and types was displayed. In the 90s, the writer willingly turned to depicting the exotic world of tramps, beggars, homeless people, tramps, and street thieves. These paintings and images are at the center of his works such as “The Petitioner”, “Painting”, “Natasha”, “Friends”, “Mysterious Stranger”, “Horse Thieves”, “White Poodle”. Kuprin showed a steady interest in the life and customs of the acting community, artists, journalists, and writers. These are his stories “Lidochka”, “Lolly”, “Survived Glory”, “Allez!”, “By order”, “Curl”, “Nag”, and the play “Clown” is also included here.

The plots of many of these works are sad, sometimes tragic. Indicative, for example, is the story “Allez!” - a psychologically capacious work, inspired by the idea of ​​humanism. Beneath the external restraint of the author's narration, the story hides the writer's deep compassion for man. The orphaned lot of a five-year-old girl turned into a circus rider, the work of a skilled acrobat under the circus dome, full of momentary risk, the tragedy of a girl deceived and insulted in her pure and high feelings and, finally, her suicide as an expression of despair - all this is depicted with Kuprin’s inherent insight and skill. It was not for nothing that L. Tolstoy considered this story one of Kuprin’s best creations.

At that time of his formation as a master of realistic prose, Kuprin wrote a lot and willingly about animals and children. Animals in Kuprin's works behave like people. They think, suffer, rejoice, fight injustice, make human friends and value this friendship. In one of the later stories, the writer, addressing his little heroine, will say: “Please note, dear Nina: we live next to all the animals and know nothing at all about them. We're just not interested. Let's take, for example, all the dogs you and I have known. Each has its own special soul, its own habits, its own character. It's the same with cats. It's the same with horses. And in birds. Just like people...” Kuprin’s works contain wise human kindness and the love of a humanist artist for everything living and living next to us and around us. These sentiments permeate all his stories about animals - “White Poodle”, “Elephant”, “Emerald” and dozens of others.

Kuprin's contribution to children's literature is enormous. He had the rare and difficult gift of writing about children in an engaging and serious manner, without false sweetness or schoolboy didactics. It is enough to read any of his children's stories - “ Wonderful doctor», « Kindergarten”, “On the River”, “Taper”, “The End of a Fairy Tale” and others, and we will be convinced that children are depicted by the writer with the finest knowledge and understanding of the child’s soul, with deep penetration into the world of his hobbies, feelings and experiences.

Constantly defending human dignity and the beauty of the inner world of man, Kuprin endowed his positive heroes - both adults and children - with high nobility of soul, feelings and thoughts, moral health, and a kind of stoicism. The best that their inner world is rich in is manifested most clearly in their ability to love - unselfishly and strongly. A love conflict underlies so many of Kuprin’s works of the 90s: the lyrical prose poem “Stoletnik”, the short stories “Stronger than Death”, “Narcissus”, “The First Person You Come Along”, “Loneliness”, “Autumn Flowers”, etc.

Affirming the moral value of man, Kuprin sought his positive hero. He found it among people not corrupted by selfish morality, living in unity with nature.

The writer contrasted the representatives of “civilized” society, who had lost nobility and honesty, with a “healthy,” “natural” person from the people.

3. Analysis of the story “Olesya”

It is this idea that forms the basis of the short story"Olesya" (1898). The image of Olesya is one of the brightest and most humane in the rich gallery female images, created by Kuprin. This is a freedom-loving and integral nature, captivating with its external beauty, with an extraordinary mind and noble soul. She is amazingly responsive to every thought, every movement of the soul of a loved one. At the same time, she is uncompromising in her actions. Kuprin shrouds in mystery the process of forming Olesya’s character and even the very origin of the girl. We don't know anything about her parents. She was raised by a dark, illiterate grandmother. She could not have any spiritualizing influence on Olesya. And the girl turned out to be so wonderful primarily because, Kuprin convinces the reader, she grew up among nature.

The story is built on a comparison of two heroes, two natures, two attitudes. On the one hand - an educated intellectual, a resident of a big city, Ivan

Timofeevich. On the other hand, Olesya is a person who has not been influenced by urban civilization. Compared to Ivan Timofeevich, a kind but weak man,

"lazy heart", Olesya rises with nobility, integrity, proud confidence in her inner strength. If in his relationships with the forest worker Ermola and the dark, ignorant village people, Ivan Timofeevich looks brave, humane and noble, then in his interactions with Olesya the negative sides of his nature also appear. True artistic instinct helped the writer reveal beauty human personality, generously endowed by nature. Naivety and authority, femininity and proud independence, “flexible, agile mind”, “primitive and vivid imagination”, touching courage, delicacy and innate tact, involvement in the innermost secrets of nature and spiritual generosity - these qualities are highlighted by the writer, drawing the charming appearance of Olesya , an integral, original, free nature, which flashed like rare gems in the surrounding darkness and ignorance.

Showing the originality and talent of Olesya, Kuprin proved himself to be a subtle master psychologist. For the first time in his work, he touched upon those mysterious phenomena of the human psyche that science is still unraveling. He writes about the unrecognized powers of intuition, premonitions, and the wisdom of thousands of years of experience that the human mind is capable of assimilating. Explaining the heroine’s “witchcraft” charms, the author expresses the conviction that Olesya had access to “that unconscious, instinctive, vague, strange knowledge obtained by chance experience, which, ahead of exact science by centuries, lives, mixed with funny and wild beliefs, in the dark , a closed mass of people, passed on like the greatest secret from generation to generation.”

In the story, for the first time, Kuprin’s cherished thought is so fully expressed: a person can be beautiful if he develops, and not destroys, the physical, spiritual and intellectual abilities given to him from above.

Kuprin considered pure, bright love to be one of the highest manifestations of the truly human in a person. In his heroine, the writer showed this possible happiness of free, unfettered love. The description of the blossoming of love and, with it, the human personality constitutes the poetic core of the story, its semantic and emotional center. With an amazing sense of tact, Kuprin makes us experience both the anxious period of the birth of love, “full of vague, languidly sad sensations,” and its happiest seconds of “pure, complete all-consuming delight,” and the long joyful dates of lovers in the dense pine forest. The world of spring, jubilant nature - mysterious and beautiful - merges in the story with an equally beautiful outpouring of human feelings. “The naive, charming fairy tale of our love continued for almost a whole month, and to this day, together with the beautiful appearance of Olesya, these blazing evening dawns, these dewy mornings fragrant with lilies of the valley and honey, full of cheerful freshness and the ringing noise of birds, live with an unfading force in my soul, these hot, languid, lazy July days... I, like a pagan god or like a young, strong animal, enjoyed the light, warmth, conscious joy of life and calm, healthy, sensual love.” In these heartfelt words of Ivan Timofeevich, the hymn of the author of “living life”, its enduring value, its beauty sounds.

The story ends with the separation of the lovers. There is essentially nothing unusual in such an ending. Even if Olesya had not been beaten by local peasants and had not left with her grandmother, fearing even more cruel revenge, she would not have been able to unite her fate with Ivan Timofeevich - they are so different people.

The story of two lovers unfolds against the backdrop of the magnificent nature of Polesie. The Kuprinsky landscape is not only extremely picturesque and rich, but also unusually dynamic. Where another, less subtle artist would have depicted the calm of a winter forest, Kuprin notes movement, but this movement sets off the silence even more clearly. “From time to time a thin branch would fall from the top and you could hear very clearly how, as it fell, it touched other branches with a slight crack.” Nature in the story is a necessary element of content. She actively influences a person’s thoughts and feelings, her paintings are organically connected with the movement of the plot. Static winter paintings nature at the beginning, at the moment of the hero’s loneliness; stormy spring, coinciding with the emergence of a feeling of love for Olesya; a fabulous summer night in moments of supreme happiness for lovers; and, finally, a severe thunderstorm with hail - these are the psychological accompaniments of the landscape that help reveal the idea of ​​the work. The bright fairy-tale atmosphere of the story does not fade even after the dramatic denouement. Gossip and gossip, the vile persecution of the clerk recede into the background, the savage reprisal of the Perebrod women against Olesya after her visit to the church fades into obscurity. Over everything insignificant, petty and evil, the victory, albeit sadly ending, is real, great - earthly love. The final touch of the story is characteristic: a string of red beads left by Olesya on the corner of the window frame in a hastily abandoned wretched hut. This detail gives compositional and semantic completeness to the work. A string of red beads is the last tribute to Olesya’s generous heart, the memory of “her tender, generous love.”

“Olesya,” perhaps more than any other work of early Kuprin, testifies to deep and diverse connections young writer with the traditions of Russian classics. Thus, researchers usually recall Tolstoy’s “Cossacks,” which are based on the same task: to depict a person untouched and uncorrupted by civilization, and to put him in contact with the so-called “civilized society.” At the same time, one can easily detect a connection between the story and Turgenev’s line in Russian prose of the 19th century. They are brought together by the contrast between a weak-willed and indecisive hero and a heroine who is courageous in her actions and completely devoted to the feeling that has gripped her. And Ivan Timofeevich involuntarily reminds us of the heroes of Turgenev’s stories “Asya” and “Spring Waters”.

In my own way artistic method The story “Olesya” is an organic combination of romanticism and realism, the ideal and the real-life. The romanticism of the story is manifested primarily in the disclosure of the image of Olesya and in the depiction of the beautiful nature of Polesie.

Both of these images - nature and Olesya - are fused into a single harmonious whole and cannot be thought of in isolation from each other. Realism and romanticism in the story complement each other and appear in a kind of synthesis.

“Olesya” is one of those works in which the best features of Kuprin’s talent were most fully revealed. Masterful modeling of characters, subtle lyricism, vivid pictures of ever-living, renewing nature, inextricably linked with the course of events, with the feelings and experiences of the heroes, poeticization of the great human feeling, a consistently and purposefully developing plot - all this puts “Olesya” among the most significant works of Kuprin.

4. Analysis of the story “Duel”

The early 900s is an important period in creative biography Kuprina. During these years, he became acquainted with Chekhov, the story “In the Circus” was approved by L. Tolstoy, he became close friends with Gorky and the Znanie publishing house. Ultimately, it was to Gorky, his help and support, that Kuprin owed much of his work on his most important work, the story"Duel" (1905).

In his work, the writer turns to the image of the military environment so familiar to him. At the center of “The Duel,” as in the center of the story “Moloch,” is the figure of a man who has become, to use Gorky’s words, “sideways” to his social environment. The basis of the plot of the story is the conflict between Lieutenant Romashov and the surrounding reality. Like Bobrov, Romashov is one of the many cogs in a social mechanism that is alien and even hostile to him. He feels like a stranger among the officers; he differs from them primarily in his humane attitude towards the soldiers. Like Bobrov, he painfully experiences the abuse of a person, the humiliation of his dignity. “It is dishonorable to beat a soldier,” he declares, “you cannot beat a man who not only cannot answer you, but does not even have the right to raise his hand to protect himself from a blow. He doesn’t even dare to tilt his head. That's shameful!". Romashov, like Bobrov, is weak, powerless, in a state of painful duality, and internally contradictory. But unlike Bobrov, who is depicted as an already fully formed personality, Romashov is given in the process of spiritual development. This gives his image internal dynamism. At the beginning of his service, the hero is full of romantic illusions, dreams of self-education and a career as a General Staff officer. Life crushes these dreams mercilessly. Shocked by the failure of his half-company on the parade ground during the regiment review, he travels around the city until nightfall and unexpectedly meets his soldier Khlebnikov.

The images of soldiers do not occupy as significant a place in the story as the images of officers. But even episodic figures of the “lower ranks” are remembered by the reader for a long time. This is Romashova’s orderly Gainan, Arkhipov, and Sharafutdinov. Close-up Private Khlebnikov is singled out in the story.

One of the most exciting scenes of the story and, according to the fair remark of K. Paustovsky, “one of the best... in Russian literature” is a night meeting at the canvas railway Romashova with Khlebnikov. Here, both the plight of the downtrodden Khlebnikov and the humanism of Romashov, who sees the soldier first of all as a human being, are revealed with the utmost completeness. The difficult, joyless fate of this unfortunate soldier shocked Romashov. A deep spiritual change occurs in him. From that time on, Kuprin writes, “his own fate and the fate of this... downtrodden, tortured soldier were somehow strangely, closely related... intertwined.” What is Romashov thinking about, what new horizons are opening up before him, when, having rejected the life he has lived until now, he begins to think about his future?

As a result of intense thought about the meaning of life, the hero comes to the conclusion that “there are only three proud callings of man: science, art and a free person.” These internal monologues of Romashov are remarkable, in which such basic problems of the story are posed as the relationship between the individual and society, the meaning and purpose of human life, etc. Romashov protests against vulgarity, against dirty “regimental love”. He dreams of a pure, sublime feeling, but his life ends early, absurdly and tragically. A love affair accelerates the outcome of Romashov’s conflict with the environment he hates.

The story ends with the death of the hero. Romashov found himself defeated in an unequal struggle against the vulgarity and stupidity of army life. Having forced his hero to see the light, the author did not see the specific ways in which the young man could move on and realize the found ideal. And no matter how much Kuprin suffered for a long time working on the finale of the work, he did not find another convincing ending.

Kuprin's excellent knowledge of army life was clearly demonstrated in his depiction of the officer environment. The spirit of careerism, inhumane treatment of soldiers, and the squalor of spiritual interests reign here. Considering themselves a special breed of people, officers look at soldiers like cattle. One of the officers, for example, beat his orderly so much that “there was blood not only on the walls, but also on the ceiling.” And when the orderly complained to the company commander, he sent him to the sergeant major and “the sergeant major beat him on his blue, swollen, bloody face for another half hour.” It is impossible to calmly read those scenes of the story where it is described how they mock the sick, downtrodden, physically weak soldier Khlebnikov.

The officers live wildly and hopelessly in everyday life. Captain Sliva, for example, during 25 years of service did not read a single book or newspaper. Another officer, Vetkin, says with conviction: “In our business you’re not supposed to think.” The officers spend their free time drinking, playing cards, brawling in brothels, fighting among themselves, and telling stories about their love affairs. The life of these people is a miserable, thoughtless existence. It is, as one of the characters in the story says, “monotonous, like a fence, and gray, like a soldier’s cloth.”

This, however, does not mean that Kuprin, as some researchers claim, deprives the officers of the story of any glimpse of humanity. The essence of the matter is that in many officers - in the regiment commander Shulgovich, and in Bek-Agamalov, and in Vetkin, and even in captain Sliva, Kuprin notes positive qualities: Shulgovich, having reprimanded the embezzled officer, immediately gives him money. Vetkin is a kind and good comrade. Bek-Agamalov is, in essence, not a bad person. Even Sliva, a stupid campaigner, is impeccably honest in relation to the soldier’s money passing through his hands.

The point, therefore, is not that we are faced with only degenerates and moral monsters, although among characters there are stories like that. And the fact is that even those endowed positive qualities people, in an atmosphere of musty everyday life and dull monotony of life, lose the will to resist this soul-sucking swamp and gradually degrade.

But, as one of the then critics N. Ashevov wrote about Kuprin’s story “The Swamp,” filled with a similar range of thoughts, “a man dies in a swamp, a man must be resurrected.” Kuprin peers into the very depths of human nature and tries to notice in people those precious grains of the soul that still have to be nurtured, humanized, and cleared of the scum of bad layers. This feature of Kuprin’s artistic method was sensitively noted by the pre-revolutionary researcher of the writer’s work F. Batyushkov: “A realist in writing, he depicts people in real outlines, in alternating chiaroscuro, insisting that there are neither absolutely good nor absolutely bad people, that the most diverse properties fit in one and the same person, and that life will become beautiful when a person is free from all prejudices and preconceptions, is strong and independent, learns to subjugate the conditions of life, and begins to create his own way of life.”

Nazansky occupies a special place in the story. This is a non-plot character. He does not take any part in the events, and should, it would seem, be perceived as an episodic character. But the significance of Nazansky is determined, firstly, by the fact that it was in his mouth that Kuprin put the author’s reasoning, summing up the criticism of army life. Secondly, because it is Nazansky who formulates positive answers to the questions that arise from Romashov. What is the essence of Nazansky’s views? If we talk about his critical statements about the life and life of his former colleagues, then they go in the same direction with the main problems of the story, and in this sense they deepen it main topic. He enthusiastically prophesies the time when “a new radiant life” will come “far from our dirty, stinking parking lots.”

In his monologues, Nazansky glorifies the life and power of a free person, which is also a progressive factor. However, Nazansky combines correct thoughts about the future and criticism of army orders with individualistic and selfish sentiments. A person, in his opinion, should live only for himself, regardless of the interests of other people. “Who is dearer and closer to you? “Nobody,” he says to Romashov. “You are the king of the world, its pride and adornment... Do what you want.” Take whatever you like... Whoever can prove to me with clear conviction how I am connected with this - damn him! - my neighbor, with a vile slave, with an infected person, with an idiot?.. And then, what interest will make me break my head for the happiness of the people of the 32nd century? It is easy to see that Nazansky here rejects Christian charity, love for one’s neighbor, and the idea of ​​self-sacrifice.

The author himself was not satisfied with the image of Nazansky, and his hero Romashov, who listens carefully to Nazansky, does not always share his point of view, much less follow his advice. Both Romashov’s attitude towards Khlebnikov and the renunciation of his own interests in the name of the happiness of his beloved woman, Shurochka Nikolaeva, indicate that the preaching of individualism by the Nazanskys, while exciting Romashov’s consciousness, does not, however, affect his heart. If anyone implements in the story the principles preached by Nazansky, without realizing it, of course, it is Shurochka Nikolaeva. It is she who condemns Romashov, who is in love with her, to death in the name of her selfish, selfish goals.

The image of Shurochka is one of the most successful in the story. Charming, graceful, she stands head and shoulders above the rest of the officer ladies of the regiment. Her portrait, painted by the loving Romashov, captivates with the hidden passion of her nature. Maybe that’s why Romashov is drawn to her, that’s why Nazansky loved her, because she has that healthy, vital, strong-willed principle that both friends so lacked. But all the extraordinary qualities of her nature are aimed at achieving selfish goals.

In the image of Shurochka Nikolaeva, an interesting artistic solution strengths and weaknesses of the human personality, female nature. It is Shurochka who accuses Romashov of weakness: in her opinion, he is pathetic and weak-willed. What is Shurochka herself like?

This is a lively mind, an understanding of the vulgarity of the surrounding life, a desire to break through to the top of society at any cost (her husband’s career is a stepping stone to this). From her point of view, everything around is weak people. Shurochka knows exactly what she wants and will achieve her goal. The strong-willed, rationalistic principle is clearly expressed in her. She is an opponent of sentimentality, in herself she suppresses what could interfere with the goal she has set - all heartfelt impulses and attachments.

Twice, as if out of weakness, she refuses love - first from the love of Nazansky, then of Romashov. Nazansky accurately captures the duality of nature in Shurochka: “passionate heart” and “dry, selfish mind.”

The cult of evil willpower characteristic of this heroine is something unprecedented in feminine character, in the gallery of Russian women depicted in Russian literature. This cult is not affirmed, but rather debunked by Kuprin. Regarded as a perversion of femininity, the principles of love and humanity. Masterfully, at first, as if with random strokes, and then more and more clearly, Kuprin highlights in the character of this woman such a trait, initially not noticed by Romashov, as spiritual coldness, callousness. For the first time, he catches something alien and hostile to himself in Shurochka’s laughter at the picnic.

“There was something instinctively unpleasant in this laughter, which sent a chill into Romashov’s soul.” At the end of the story, in the scene last date, the hero experiences a similar, but significantly intensified sensation when Shurochka dictates her terms of the duel. “Romashov felt something secret, smooth, slimy crawling invisibly between them, which sent a cold smell to his soul.” This scene is complemented by the description of Shurochka’s last kiss, when Romashov felt that “her lips were cold and motionless.” Shurochka is calculating, selfish and in her ideas does not go beyond the dream of the capital, of success in high society. To fulfill this dream, she destroys Romashov, trying by any means to win a secure place for herself and for her limited, unloved husband. At the end of the work, when Shurochka deliberately does her disastrous deed, persuading Romashov to fight Nikolaev in a duel, the author shows the unkindness of the strength contained in Shurochka, contrasting it with Romashov’s “humane weakness”.

“The Duel” was and remains an outstanding phenomenon of Russian prose at the beginning of the 20th century.

During the period of the first Russian revolution, Kuprin was in a democratic camp, although he did not take direct part in the events. Being at the height of the revolution in Crimea, Kuprin observed revolutionary ferment among the sailors. He witnessed the massacre of the mutinous cruiser "Ochakov" and himself took part in the rescue of the few surviving sailors. Kuprin spoke about the tragic death of the heroic cruiser in his essay “Events in Sevastopol,” for which the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Chukhnin, ordered the writer to be expelled from Crimea.

5. Essays “Listrigons”

Kuprin suffered the defeat of the revolution very hard. But in his work he continued to adhere to the position of realism. With sarcasm, he portrays philistinism in his stories as a force that restrains a person’s spiritual growth and distorts the human personality.

Ugly " dead souls" Kuprin, as before, opposes ordinary people, proud, cheerful, cheerful, living a difficult, but spiritually rich, meaningful work life. These are his essays about the life and work of Balaklava fishermen under the general title"Listrigons" (1907-1911) (Listrigons - a mythical people of cannibal giants in Homer’s poem “Odyssey”). In "Listrigons" there is no main character who moves from one essay to another. But certain figures are still highlighted in them. These are the images of Yura Paratino, Kolya Kostandi, Yura Kalitanaka and others. Before us are natures that have been shaped over centuries by the life and profession of a fisherman. These people are the embodiment of activity. And, moreover, deeply human activity. Disunity and selfishness are alien to them.

Fishermen go to their hard fishery in teams, and joint hard work develops solidarity and mutual support in them. This work requires will, cunning, resourcefulness. People who are stern, courageous, and risk-loving are admired by Kuprin, because in their characters there is much that the reflective intelligentsia lacks. The writer admires their hoarse will and simplicity. The integral and courageous characters of the fishermen, the writer asserts, are the result of the fact that they, like Olesya, are children of nature, live far away from the spoiled “civilized” world. “Listrigons”, just like the story “Olesya,” represent in their artistic method, a fusion of realism and romanticism. In a romantic, upbeat style, the writer depicts the life, work and especially the characters of Balaklava fishermen.

During these same years, Kuprin created two wonderful works about love - “Sulamphi” (1908) and “Pomegranate Bracelet” (1911). Kuprin's interpretation of this topic appears especially significant in comparison with the depiction of women in anti-realist literature. A woman, who always personified the best and brightest in the Russian people among classical writers, during the years of reaction, under the pen of some fiction writers, turned into an object of lustful and gross desires. This is exactly how a woman is depicted in the works of A. Kamensky, E. Nagrodskaya, A. Verbitskaya and others.

In contrast to them, Kuprin glorifies love as a powerful, tender and elevating feeling.

6. Analysis of the story “Shulamith”

By the brightness of the colors, the power of poetic embodiment, the story"Shulamith" occupies one of the first places in the writer’s work. This patterned story, imbued with the spirit of Eastern legends, about the joyful and tragic love of a poor girl for the king and sage Solomon, is inspired by the biblical “Song of Songs.” The plot of “Sulamithi” is to a great extent the product of Kuprin’s creative imagination, but he drew his colors and moods from this biblical poem. However, this was not simple borrowing. Very boldly and skillfully using the technique of stylization, the artist sought to convey the pathetic, melodious, solemn structure, the majestic and full of energy sound of ancient legends.

Throughout the story there is a contrast between light and dark, love and hatred. The love of Solomon and Shulamith is described in light, festive colors, in a soft combination of colors. Conversely, the feelings of the cruel Queen Astiz and the royal bodyguard Eliav, who is in love with her, are devoid of a sublime character.

The image of Sulamith embodies passionate and pure, bright love. The opposite feeling - hatred and envy - is expressed in the image of Astiz, rejected by Solomon. Shulamith brought Solomon a great and bright love that fills her completely. Love worked a miracle with her - it revealed the beauty of the world to the girl, enriched her mind and soul. And even death cannot defeat the power of this love. Shulamith dies with words of gratitude for the highest happiness given to her by Solomon. The story "Shulamith" is especially remarkable as a glorification of women. The sage Solomon is beautiful, but even more beautiful in her half-childish naivety and selflessness is Shulamith, who gives her life for her lover. The words of Solomon’s farewell to Shulamith contain the innermost meaning of the story: “As long as people love each other, as long as the beauty of soul and body will be the best and sweetest dream in the world, until then, I swear to you, Shulamith, your name is in for many centuries it will be pronounced with tenderness and gratitude.”

The legendary plot of “Sulamith” opened up unlimited possibilities for Kuprin to sing of love that was strong, harmonious and freed from any everyday conventions and everyday obstacles. But the writer could not limit himself to such an exotic interpretation of the theme of love. He persistently searches in the most real, everyday reality for people obsessed the highest feeling love that can rise, at least in dreams, above the surrounding prose of life. And, as always, he turns his gaze to to the common man. This is how it arose in the creative mind of the writer poetic theme « Garnet bracelet».

Love, in Kuprin’s view, is one of the eternal, inexhaustible and not fully known sweet secrets. It most fully, deeply and diversifiedly reveals a person’s personality, his character, capabilities and talents. It awakens in a person the best, most poetic sides of his soul, elevates him above the prose of life, and activates spiritual forces. “Love is the brightest and most complete reproduction of my Self. Individuality is not expressed in strength, not in dexterity, not in intelligence, not in talent, not in voice, not in colors, not in gait, not in creativity. But in love... A person who dies for love dies for everything,” Kuprin wrote to F. Batyushkov, revealing his philosophy of love.

7. Analysis of the story "Garnet bracelet"

Narration within a story"Garnet bracelet" opens with a sad picture of nature, in which alarming notes are caught: “... From morning to morning there was a continuous rain, fine as water dust... then a fierce hurricane blew from the northwest, from the direction of the steppe,” taking away human lives. The lyrical landscape “overture” precedes the story of a romantically sublime, but unrequited love: a certain telegraph operator Zheltkov fell in love with a married aristocrat, Princess Vera Sheina, who was unattainable for him, writes tender letters to her, not hoping for an answer, and considers those moments when secretly , from a distance, can see his beloved.

As in many other stories by Kuprin, “The Garnet Bracelet” is based on a true fact. There was a real prototype of the main character of the story, Princess Vera Sheina. This was the mother of the writer Lev Lyubimov, the niece of the famous “legal Marxist” Tugan-Baranovsky. In fact, there was also a telegraph operator Zholtov (Zheltkov’s prototype). Lev Lyubimov writes about this in his memoirs “In a Foreign Land”. Taking an episode from life, Kuprin creatively imagined it. The feeling of love is affirmed here as a real and high life value. “And I want to say that people nowadays have forgotten how to love. I don’t see true love,” states one of the characters, an old general, sadly. The life story of the “little man”, which included love that is “strong as death”, love - “a deep and sweet secret” - refutes this statement.

With the image of Zheltkov, Kuprin shows that ideal, romantic love is not a fiction; not a dream, not an idyll, but a reality, although rarely encountered in life. The portrayal of this character has a very strong romantic element. We know almost nothing about his past, about the origins of the formation of his character. Where and how was this “little man” able to get such a wonderful musical education, to cultivate in oneself such a developed sense of beauty, human dignity and inner nobility? Like all romantic heroes, Zheltkov is lonely. Describing the character’s appearance, the author draws attention to the features inherent in natures with a fine mental organization: “He was tall, thin, with long, fluffy soft hair... very pale, with a gentle girlish face, with blue eyes and a stubborn childish chin with a dimple in the middle.” This external originality of Zheltkov further emphasizes the richness of his nature.

The plot of the plot action is when Princess Vera receives on her birthday another letter from Zheltkov and an unusual gift - a garnet bracelet (“five scarlet bloody lights trembling inside five garnets”). “Definitely blood!” - Vera thought with unexpected alarm.” Outraged by Zheltkov’s importunity, Vera’s brother Nikolai Nikolaevich and her husband Prince Vasily decide to find and “teach a lesson” to this, from their point of view, “impudent.”

The scene of their visit to Zheltkov’s apartment is the culmination of the work, which is why the author dwells on it in such detail. At first, Zheltkov is shy in front of the aristocrats who visited his poor home, and feels guiltlessly guilty. But as soon as Nikolai Nikolaevich hinted that in order to “reason” with Zheltkov, he would resort to the help of the authorities, the hero literally transformed. It’s as if another person appears before us - defiantly calm, not afraid of threats, with a sense of self-esteem, aware of moral superiority over his uninvited guests. " Small man"He straightens out so spiritually that Vera's husband begins to feel involuntary sympathy and respect for him. He tells his brother-in-law

About Zheltkov: “I see his face, and I feel that this man is not capable of deceiving or knowingly lying. Indeed, think, Kolya, is he to blame for love and is it possible to control such a feeling as love... I feel sorry for this man. And I not only feel sorry, but I feel that I am present at some enormous tragedy of the soul...”

Tragedy, alas, was not long in coming. Zheltkov gives himself so much to his love that without it, life loses all meaning for him. And therefore he commits suicide, so as not to interfere with the princess’s life, so that “nothing temporary, vain and worldly would disturb” her “beautiful soul.” Zheltkov's last letter raises the theme of love to the highest tragedy. Dying, Zheltkov thanks Vera for being for him “the only joy in life, the only consolation, the only thought.”

It is important that with the death of the hero the great feeling of love does not die. His death spiritually resurrects Princess Vera, revealing to her a world of feelings hitherto unknown to her. She seems to be liberated internally, acquiring the great power of love inspired by the dead, which sounds like the eternal music of life. It is no coincidence that the epigraph to the story is Beethoven's second sonata, the sounds of which crown the finale and serve as a hymn to pure and selfless love.

Zheltkov seemed to have foreseen that Vera would come with him to say goodbye, and through the landlady he bequeathed to her to listen to a Beethoven sonata. In unison with the music, the dying words of the man who selflessly loved her sound in Vera’s soul: “I remember your every step, your smile, the sound of your gait. My last memories are enveloped in sweet sadness, quiet, beautiful sadness. But I won't cause you any grief. I leave alone, silently, as God and fate willed. "Hallowed be thy name."

In my sad dying hour, I pray only to you. Life could be wonderful for me too. Don't complain, poor heart, don't complain. In my soul I call upon death, but in my heart I am full of praise to you: “Hallowed be thy name.”

These words are a kind of akathist of love, the refrain of which is a line from a prayer. It is truly said: “The lyrical musical ending of the story affirms the high power of love, which made one feel its greatness, beauty, selflessness, attaching another soul to itself for a moment.”

And yet “Garnet Bracelet” does not leave such a bright and inspired impression as “Olesya”. K. Paustovsky subtly noticed the special tone of the story, saying about it: “the bitter charm of the “Garnet Bracelet.” This bitterness lies not only in the death of Zheltkov, but also in the fact that his love concealed, along with inspiration, a certain limitation and narrowness. If for Olesya love is a part of being, one of the constituent elements of the multicolored world surrounding her, then for Zheltkov, on the contrary, the whole world narrows down only to love, which he admits in his suicide letter to Princess Vera: “It happened,” he writes, “that I’m not interested in anything in life: neither politics, nor science, nor philosophy, nor concern for the future happiness of people - for me, my whole life lies only in you.” It is quite natural that the loss of his beloved becomes the end of Zheltkov’s life. He has nothing left to live for. Love did not expand or deepen his connections with the world, but, on the contrary, narrowed them. Therefore, the tragic ending of the story, along with the hymn of love, also contains another, no less important idea: you cannot live by love alone.

8. Analysis of the story “The Pit”

During these same years, Kuprin conceived a large artistic canvas - a story"Pit" , on which he worked with long breaks in 1908-1915. The story was a response to a series of erotic works that savored perversity and pathology, and to numerous debates about the emancipation of sexual passions, and to specific disputes about prostitution, which has become a sick phenomenon of Russian reality.

The humanist writer dedicated his book to “mothers and youth.” He tried to influence the unclouded consciousness and morality of young people, mercilessly telling about what vile things were happening in brothels. In the center of the story is an image of one of these “houses of tolerance”, where bourgeois morals triumph, where Anna Markovna, the owner of this establishment, feels like a sovereign ruler, where Lyubka, Zhenechka, Tamara and other prostitutes are “victims of social temperament” - and where young intellectuals - truth-seekers: student Lichonin and journalist Platonov come to pull these victims out from the bottom of this stinking swamp.

The story contains many vivid scenes where the life of nightlife establishments “in all its everyday simplicity and everyday efficiency” is calmly recreated, without strain or loud words. But overall, it did not become Kuprin’s artistic success. Stretched out, loose, overloaded with naturalistic details, “The Pit” caused dissatisfaction with both many readers and the author himself. Final opinion about this story in our literary criticism has not yet developed.

And yet “The Pit” should hardly be regarded as an absolute creative failure of Kuprin.

One of the undoubted, from our point of view, advantages of this work is that Kuprin looked at prostitution not only as social phenomenon(“one of the most terrible ulcers of bourgeois society,” we have been accustomed to assert for decades), but also as a phenomenon of a complex biological order. The author of “The Pit” tried to show that the fight against prostitution rests on global problems associated with changes in human nature, which conceals millennial instincts.

In parallel with work on the story “The Pit,” Kuprin is still working hard on his favorite genre - the story. Their topics are varied. With great sympathy, he writes about poor people, their crippled destinies, about their abused childhood, recreates pictures of bourgeois life, castigates the bureaucratic nobility and cynical businessmen. His stories of these years “Black Lightning” (1912), “Anathema” (1913), “Elephant Walk” and others are colored with anger, contempt and at the same time love.

An eccentric, a fanatic of the cause and a disinterested man, Turchenko, towering above the bourgeois quagmire, is akin to Gorky’s purposeful heroes. It is not for nothing that the leitmotif of the story is the image of black lightning from Gorky’s “Song of the Petrel.” And in terms of the power of its exposure of provincial philistinism, “Black Lightning” echoes Gorky’s Okurov cycle.

Kuprin followed the principles of realistic aesthetics in his work. At the same time, the writer willingly used forms artistic convention. These are his allegorical and fantastic stories “Dog Happiness”, “Toast”, extremely rich figurative symbolism works “Dreams”, “Happiness”, “Giants”. His fantastic stories “Liquid Sun” (1912) and “Star of Solomon” (1917) are characterized by a skillful interweaving of concrete everyday and surreal episodes and pictures. biblical stories and folk legends are based on the stories “The Garden of the Blessed Virgin” and “Two Saints” (1915). They showed Kuprin’s interest in the rich and complex world around him, in the unsolved mysteries of the human psyche. The symbolism, moral or philosophical allegory contained in these works was one of the most important means artistic embodiment writer of the world and man.

9. Kuprin in exile

A. Kuprin perceived the events of World War I from a patriotic position. Paying tribute to the heroism of Russian soldiers and officers, in the stories “Goga Merry” and “Cantaloupe” he exposes bribe-takers and embezzlers who cleverly profit from the people’s misfortune.

During the years of the October Revolution and the Civil War, Kuprin lived in Gatchina, near Petrograd. When General Yudenich’s troops left Gatchina in October 1919, Kuprin moved with them. He settled in Finland and then moved to Paris.

In the first years of his stay in exile, the writer experiences an acute creative crisis caused by separation from his homeland. The turning point came only in 1923, when his new talented works appeared: “The One-Armed Commandant”, “Fate”, “The Golden Rooster”. The past of Russia, memories of Russian people, about native nature- this is what Kuprin gives the last of his talent. In stories and essays about Russian history, the writer revives the traditions of Leskov, telling about unusual, sometimes anecdotal, colorful Russian characters and morals.

Such excellent stories as “Napoleon’s Shadow”, “Red, Bay, Gray, Black”, “The Tsar’s Guest from Narovchat”, “The Last Knights” were written in Leskov’s style. The old, pre-revolutionary motives again sounded in his prose. The short stories “Olga Sur”, “Bad Pun”, “Blondel” seem to complete the line in the writer’s depiction of the circus; following the famous “Listri-gons” he writes the story “Svetlana”, again resurrecting the colorful figure of the Balaklava fishing chieftain Kolya Kostandi. The story “The Wheel of Time” (1930) is dedicated to the glorification of the great “gift of love,” the hero of which, the Russian engineer Misha, who fell in love with a beautiful Frenchwoman, is akin to the writer’s previous unselfish and pure-hearted characters. Kuprin’s stories “Yu-Yu”, “Zaviraika”, “Ralph” continue the line of the writer’s depiction of animals, which he began even before the revolution (stories “Emerald”, “White Poodle”, “Elephant Walk”, “Peregrine Falcon”).

In a word, no matter what Kuprin wrote about in exile, all his works are imbued with thoughts about Russia, hidden with longing for a lost homeland. Even in essays dedicated to France and Yugoslavia - “Home Paris”, “Intimate Paris”, “Cape Huron”, “Old Songs” - the writer, depicting foreign customs, life and nature, returns again and again to the thought of Russia. He compares French and Russian swallows, Provencal mosquitoes and Ryazan mosquitoes, European beauties and Saratov girls. And everything at home, in Russia, seems nicer and better to him.

High moral issues Kuprin's latest works - the autobiographical novel "Junker" and the story "Zhaneta" (1933) - are also inspired. “Junkers” is a continuation of the autobiographical story “At the Turning Point” (“Cadets”) created by Kuprin thirty years ago, although the surnames of the main characters are different: in “Cadets” - Bulavin, in “Junkers” - Alexandrov. Talking about the next stage of the hero’s life at the Alexandrov School, Kuprin in “Junkers,” unlike “Cadets,” removes the slightest critical note towards the educational system in Russian closed military educational institutions, painting the narrative about Alexandrov’s cadet years in rosy, idyllic tones. However, “Junkers” is not just the story of the Alexander Military School, conveyed through the eyes of one of its pupils. This is also a work about old Moscow. The silhouettes of Arbat, Patriarch's Ponds, the Institute of Noble Maidens, etc. appear through the romantic haze.

The novel expressively conveys what is born in the heart young Alexandrov feeling of first love. But despite the abundance of light and festivities, the novel "Junker" is a sad book. She is warmed by the senile warmth of memories. Again and again, with “indescribable, sweet, bitter and tender sadness,” Kuprin mentally returns to his homeland, to his bygone youth, to his beloved Moscow.

10. The story “Zhaneta”

These nostalgic notes are clearly heard in the story"Zhaneta" . Without touching, “as if a cinematic film is unfolding,” he passes by the old emigrant professor Simonov, once famous in Russia, and now huddled in a poor attic, the life of a bright and noisy Paris. With a great sense of tact, without falling into sentimentality, Kuprin tells about the loneliness of an old man, about his noble, but no less oppressive poverty, about his friendship with a mischievous and rebellious cat. But the most heartfelt pages of the story are devoted to Simonov’s friendship with the little impoverished girl Zhaneta, the “princess of four streets.” The writer in no way idealizes this pretty, dark-haired girl with dirty little hands, who, like the black cat, looks a little down on the old professor. However, a chance acquaintance with her illuminated his lonely life and revealed all the hidden reserves of tenderness in his soul.

The story ends sadly. The mother takes Janeta away from Paris, and the old man is again left completely alone, except for the black cat. In this work

Kuprin managed with great artistic power to show the collapse of the life of a man who lost his homeland. But the philosophical context of the story is broader. He is in the affirmation of purity and beauty human soul, which a person should not lose under any hardships in life.

After the story “Zhaneta,” Kuprin did not create anything significant. As the daughter of the writer K. A. Kuprin testifies, “he sat down at his desk, forced to earn his daily bread. It was felt that he really lacked Russian soil, purely Russian material.”

It is impossible without a feeling of acute pity to read the letters of the writer of these years to his old emigrant friends: Shmelev, artist I. Repin, circus wrestler I. Zaikin. Their main motive is nostalgic pain for Russia, the inability to create outside of it. “The emigrant life completely chewed me up, and the distance from my homeland flattened my spirit to the ground,”6 he confesses to I.E. Repin.

11. Return to homeland and death of Kuprin

Homesickness becomes more and more unbearable, and the writer decides to return to Russia. At the end of May 1937, Kuprin returned to the city of his youth - Moscow, and at the end of December he moved to Leningrad. Old and terminally ill, he still hopes to continue his writing, but his strength finally leaves him. On August 25, 1938, Kuprin died.

A master of language, an entertaining plot, a man of great love for life, Kuprin left a rich literary legacy that does not fade with time, bringing joy to more and more new readers. The feelings of many connoisseurs of Kuprin’s talent were well expressed by K. Paustovsky: “We must be grateful to Kuprin for everything - for his deep humanity, for his subtle talent, for his love for his country, for his unshakable faith in the happiness of his people and, finally, for never the dying ability in him to ignite from the most insignificant contact with poetry and write freely and easily about it.”

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