Writer Veresaev works. Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich

The Russian writer Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich (Smidovich) occupies a special place in the galaxy of Russian prose writers. Today he is lost against the background of his outstanding contemporaries L. N. Tolstoy, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. Chekhov, M. Gorky, I. Bunin, M. Sholokhov, but he has his own style, his highest services to Russian literature and a range of excellent writings.

Family and childhood

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich, whose biography was associated with two vocations: a doctor and a writer, was born on January 4, 1867 in Tula. In the family of the future writer, there were many mixed nationalities. The parents of the mother were a Ukrainian from Mirgorod and a Greek, on the paternal side there were Germans and Poles in the family. The family name of the writer - Smidovich, belonged to an ancient Polish noble family. His father was a doctor, he founded the first city hospital in Tula, initiated the creation of a sanitary commission in the city, and stood at the origins of the Tula Society of Doctors. Vikenty's mother was a highly educated noblewoman, she was the first in the city to open a kindergarten in her house, and then an elementary school. The family had 11 children, three died in childhood. All children were given a quality education, representatives of the local intelligentsia were constantly in the house, there were conversations about the art of politics, the fate of the country. In this atmosphere, the boy grew up, who in the future himself will become a prominent representative of the Russian educated nobility. From childhood, Vikenty read books, he was especially fond of the adventure genre, especially Mine Reed and Starting from adolescence, the future writer actively helped his family every summer, he worked on a par with the peasants: he mowed, plowed, carried hay, so he knew firsthand the severity of agricultural work .

Studies

Vikenty Veresaev grew up in a family where education was compulsory for everyone. The boy's parents themselves were enlightened people, had an excellent library and instilled in their children a love of learning. Veresaev had very good natural humanitarian inclinations: an excellent memory, an interest in languages ​​and history. At the gymnasium, he studied very diligently, and graduated from each class with an award among the first students, he achieved special success in the knowledge of ancient languages, and from the age of 13 he began to translate. He graduated from the Veresaev gymnasium with a silver medal. In 1884, he entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, from which he graduated with a PhD in History. But the passion for the ideas of populism, the influence of the views of D. Pisarev and N. Mikhailovsky, prompted him to enter the Faculty of Medicine at Dorpat University (Tartu) in 1888. The young man rightly believed that the medical profession would allow him to "go to the people" and benefit him. While still a student, in 1892 he traveled to the Yekaterinoslav province, where he worked during the cholera epidemic as the head of the sanitary barracks.

Life ups and downs

In 1894, after graduating from the university, Veresaev returned to Tula, where he began working as a doctor. Vikenty Veresaev, whose biography is now connected with medicine, during his medical practice, carefully observed the lives of people and made notes, which then became literary works. So in his life two of the most important things of life intertwined. Two years later, Veresaev moved to St. Petersburg, he was invited as one of the best graduates of the medical faculty to work in the St. Petersburg barracks (future Botkin) hospital for acutely infectious patients. For five years he has been working there as an intern and head of the library. In 1901, he goes on a long journey through Russia and Europe, he communicates a lot with the leading writers of that time, observes the life of people. In 1903 he moved to Moscow, where he intended to devote himself to literature. With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Vikenty Vikentievich was mobilized as a doctor, and he became a junior resident in a field mobile hospital in Manchuria. The impressions of that time would later become the theme of several of his works. During the First World War, he was also a military doctor in Kolomna, organizing the work of the Moscow military sanitary detachment.

Progressive-minded Veresaev accepted both Russian revolutions, he saw in them a boon for the country. After the October Revolution, he became chairman of the Artistic and Educational Commission under the Soviet of Workers' Deputies in Moscow. From 1918 to 1921 he lived in the Crimea and was an eyewitness to fierce battles between whites and reds, this period of hardship and hardship will also become a source of plots for literary writings. Since 1921, the writer has been living in Moscow, writing and actively participating in educational and organizational activities.

During World War II, the already elderly writer was evacuated to Tbilisi. He managed to see the victory of the USSR in the war and died on June 3, 1945 in Moscow.

First literary experiences

Veresaev Vikenty begins to write at the gymnasium age, initially the young man saw himself as a poet. His first publication is the poem "Meditation", published under the pseudonym V. Vikentiev in the magazine "Fashion Light and Fashion Store" in 1885. Two years later, in the journal World Illustration, under the pseudonym Veresaev, he publishes the story "The Riddle", in which he gives his answers to the main questions of life: what is happiness and what is the meaning of life. Since that time, literature has become a permanent occupation of Vikenty Vikentievich.

Becoming a master

Vikenty Veresaev, from the very beginning of his journey in literature, defined his direction as a path of quest, in his works he reflected the painful throwing of the Russian intelligentsia, which he himself experienced, going from a passion for populism and Marxism to moderate patriotism. He almost immediately realized that poetry was not his way, and turned to prose. At first he tries himself in small forms: he writes stories, short stories. In 1892, he published a series of essays "Underground Kingdom" about the life and hard work of Donetsk miners. Then for the first time he uses the pseudonym Veresaev, which became his literary name. In 1894, he published the story "Without a Road", in which, in a figurative form, he tells about the search for a way, the meaning of life by the Russian public and the intelligentsia. In 1897, the story "The Pestilence" continues the same theme, fixing the acquisition by the young generation of the leading social democratic idea.

Glory years

In 1901, Versaev's "Doctor's Notes" were published, which brought him fame throughout the country. In them, the writer tells about the path of a young doctor, about those realities of the profession that were usually hushed up, about experiments on patients, about the moral gravity of this work. The work showed Veresaev's great writing talent, subtle psychologism and the author's powers of observation. Since that time, he has been included in the galaxy of the country's leading writers, along with Garshin and Gorky. The progressive views of the writer did not go unnoticed, and the authorities send him under supervision to Tula in order to reduce his activity.

In 1904-1906, his notes on the Japanese War were published, in which he spoke almost directly about the need to oppose the power of the autocracy. Veresaev Vikenty is also engaged in publishing activities, is a member of various literary associations. After the revolution, he actively participated in educational work, participated in the publication of new magazines. After the revolution, Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich also turned to large forms and literary criticism. Works in the form of a "critical study" about Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche became a new word in literary and artistic prose. The author has always sought to "educate the youth", to broadcast high ideals and educational ideas. From his pen come magnificent critical biographical essays about I. Annensky, A. Chekhov, L. Andreev,

The writer devotes a lot of time to translation activities; many works from ancient Greek poetry saw the light in his presentation. For them, Veresaev was even awarded the Pushkin Prize. Even on his last day, Vikenty Vikentievich edited the translation of Homer's Iliad.

writing method

Veresaev Vikenty connected his literary destiny with the “new life”, in this he echoes M. Gorky. His writing style is distinguished not only by vivid realism, but also by the subtlest psychological observations of his own experiences. Autobiography has become a hallmark of his work. He expressed his impressions of life in a series of essay notes. Worldview searches found their expression in the stories that Vikenty Veresaev became famous for. "Competition", "Eithymia" and some other stories became his narration about his personal life and reflections on the female ideal.

The most vivid creative essence of Veresaev was expressed in such works as the novels "At the Dead End" and "Sisters".

Criticism and reviews

Veresaev Vikenty during his lifetime was rather favorably received by critics, he was noted as a relevant and progressive author. Modern literary critics rarely turn to the writer's work, which, however, does not mean that he lacks creative finds and talented works. Reviews of modern readers are also rare, but very favorable. Modern connoisseurs of Veresaev note his magnificent style and consonance with the worldview searches of modern youth.

Private life

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich was constantly absorbed in his work. In life, he was a simple and very friendly and affable person. He was married to his second cousin Maria Germogenovna. The couple had no children. In general, he lived a prosperous life filled with work and participation in the organization of the educational and creative process in the country.

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich(real, surname - Smidovich), writer, was born on 4 (16) I. 1867 in Tula, in the family of a doctor.

In 1884 he graduated from the Tula classical gymnasium and entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University.

In 1888 he entered the medical faculty of Dorpat University.

Since 1894, having received a medical degree, Vikenty Vikentievich began to engage in medical practice.

In 1887, his first stories were published - "The Nasty Boy" and "The Riddle". The author considered the second of these stories the beginning of his serious literary activity, invariably opening his collected works to them. In this story, Vikenty Vikentievich, developing the theme of art, affirms the idea that art is designed to awaken high aspirations in a person, to evoke faith in one's own strength, to raise one to fight.

Veresaev tries to find an ideological support in populism, sharing his views. However, the theories of the Narodniks were increasingly divorced from reality, and Veresaev's critical mind could not feed on outdated dogmas for a long time.

In the 90s. Vikenty Vikentyevich Veresaev ideologically adjoins the group of legal Marxists and is published in the journals Life and Nachalo. This gave him the opportunity to understand populism "from outside" in its true content.

In the story "Without a Road" (1894), the writer painted the tragic figure of a populist, seized with deep despair from the collapse of his ideals. The hero of the story, an honest and active man, Zemstvo doctor Chekanov, is convinced by his own practice of the futility of populist sermons. Avoiding high-profile words that have been erased like a small coin, he strives for useful and fruitful activities for the benefit of the people. Truthfully and ruthlessly depicting his hero, the author affirms the belief that the new generation of revolutionaries in the person of Natasha and her ilk will find the right path to a noble goal. The story "Without a Road" brought literary fame to Veresaev, and since then, in the eyes of a wide circle of readers, he has become a "chronicler" of the Russian intelligentsia.

Vikenty Vikentyevich, with his works, raised the most burning questions, invading the very thick of life.

In the story "The Addiction" (1897), the image of Natasha will again appear, but no longer restless in search of a foothold, but who has found an ideological path. Convinced of the complete failure of the populists, Natasha and her associate Daev enter into an ideological battle with them. They say that “a new, deeply revolutionary class has grown up and stepped on the stage”, that “in the life around us there is a fundamental, long-unseen break, in this break one thing comes and goes, another is imperceptibly born ...”.

The struggle against the populists, who saw support in the peasant, by no means meant for Veresaev a rejection of the theme of peasant life. In his stories, Vikenty Vikentyevich shows the severity and hopelessness of the life of the peasants, but, unlike his contemporaries - Bunin, Muyzhel and others, focuses on social changes that affected the economic situation of the village. Veresaev looks at reality through the eyes of a materialist, deeply delving into the very essence of the phenomena depicted.

V. I. Lenin, in his work “The Development of Capitalism in Russia”, used Veresaev’s story “Lizar” as an illustration to the words about the situation of the Russian peasant, where the writer “talks about the peasant of the Pskov province Lizar, who preaches the use of drops and other things to “reduce a person” ( Works, vol. 3, pp. 207-208).

The life of the peasants is hard and hopeless, but it should not be like this. The writer affirms this idea in all the stories dedicated to the village

"To hell"

"In the Dry Fog"

"In the steppe" and others.

In the last of these stories, Veresaev V.V. depicts the honest, incorruptible nature of a Russian person, his self-esteem, the pride of a worker.

In 1901, the famous "Doctor's Notes" were published, which provoked heated discussions and agitated wide public circles. The "notes" are written on behalf of the "average" doctor, with all his inherent shortcomings, which were mainly the result of a vicious system of education. The author shows the helplessness of this "average" doctor in practice. The path along which he walks, stumbling like a blind man who has lost his guide, poses a whole series of problems and contradictory positions, from which the young doctor is not able to extricate himself. It is significant that the author chose his meeting with an advanced revolutionary worker as a turning point in the mood of his hero-intellectual. This seriously ill, but strong-willed man pushed him to a new, deeper, clear understanding of the world. The "Doctor's Notes", distinguished by the exceptional power of criticism, at the same time were a direct challenge to bourgeois medicine, which was fenced off by a stone wall from the masses.

In 1902, the story "At the Turn" appeared; it reflected the experiences and moods of the intelligentsia on the eve of the first Russian revolution.

In the story, Veresaev illuminates the struggle of revolutionary Marxism against opportunism, showing the ideological failure of such a revisionist trend as Bernsteinism, which had its supporters in Russia. The first part of the story depicts advanced Marxist revolutionaries, active fighters, while the second part deals with the intelligentsia, who lost faith in the revolution and changed the goals of the liberation struggle. The story attracted the attention of V. I. Lenin. He spoke sympathetically about its first part (which shows passionate revolutionary youth), imbued with a pre-stormy mood. The second part reduced the morale of the work.

During the Russo-Japanese War, Vikenty Vikentievich, as a military doctor, was a direct participant in the events in the Far East. The anger of a true Russian patriot against a war unnecessary to the people is imbued with Versaev's "Stories about the War" (1906) and journalistic notes "At the War" (1907-1908). Veresaev consistently, from the moment of mobilization to the final defeat of the Russian troops on the fields of Manchuria, truthfully reveals the real meaning of the adventure started at the arbitrariness of the tsarist government. Admiring the bravery and courage of the Russian soldier, Vikenty Vikentievich directs his blows against the "internal Turks" - mediocre generals, embezzlers of state funds, high-ranking marauders who committed monstrous arbitrariness and least of all thought about the interests of the army and Russia.

In 1908, Veresaev wrote the story "To Life", which affected the mood of hopelessness and hopelessness. At this time, his connection with the revolutionary movement was weakened and he did not see a real way to fight. In the period between the two revolutions, the writer worked hard on two books of the philosophical and literary genre - a very original and peculiar genre in his work.

One of these books - "Living Life" (book 1, 1910) is dedicated to the work of F. Dostoevsky and L. Tolstoy, the second - "Apollo and Dionysus" (1915) - Nietzsche. From the pages of these books sounded a hymn to life, its joy and greatness. His books were directed against anti-humanism and pessimism. Veresaev rejects the decadent interpretation of ancient culture by Friedrich Nietzsche, opposing him with an assessment of the immortal works of Homer as a wonderful childhood of mankind with its inherent healthy outlook on life.

After the October Revolution, Vikenty Vikentievich Veresaev became an active participant in the literary movement. His path to revolution was complex and sometimes contradictory. Like many other representatives of critical realism, at first he did not accept the principle of partisanship in literature, trying to establish himself in the position of an abstract, non-class "freedom" of artistic creativity. Only practical participation in cultural construction and gradual knowledge of the new reality firmly connect Veresaev's work with Soviet literature.

In the 20s. Veresaev V.V. develops the themes that have been put forward by life, especially the theme of the intelligentsia and the revolution. This topic was devoted to his novel "At the Dead End" (1922), which depicts intellectuals familiar to the reader from his pre-revolutionary work, trying to take a position above the fight. Psychologically subtly and truthfully, the writer showed intellectuals who did not understand the patterns of the events that took place and got lost in them. However, the people of the new world remained outside the attention of the author.

In 1933, the novel "Sisters" was published, in which Veresaev showed the process of ideological restructuring of the intelligentsia, its attempts to actively engage in the process of socialist construction. The novel is written in the form of a joint diary of two sisters - Katya and Nina Sartanov, which opened up the possibility for the author to penetrate into the depths of the experiences of his characters. Before the reader passes the story of emotional experiences of female students, psychologically far from the new reality, but in their own way going to it. In the novel, the sexually-sensual sphere of experiences of the frivolous Nina Sartanova, carried away by peculiar "experiments", sticks out too much. The emphasis on this kind of experiences was made earlier by Veresaev in the story "Isanka" (1927), which caused discussions and disputes among young people.

In the last years of his life, Vikenty Vikentievich created a wonderful cycle of memoirs, in which the picture of the literary movement and cultural life of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was recreated in a wide and varied way.

"In my youth" - 1927,

"In my student years" - 1929.

These memoirs, in which the reader will meet the images of such prominent people as L. Tolstoy, V. Korolenko, A. Chekhov, N. G. Garin, L. Andreev, K. Stanislavsky, V. Zasulich and many others, are of great cognitive value .

The literary works of Vikenty Vikentievich Veresaev are widely known, especially devoted to Pushkin's themes - "Pushkin in Life" (1926-27) and

"Pushkin's Companions" (1934-36).

These works are built on documentary material, which equally includes sources that correctly reflect the image of Pushkin, and sources that are far from objectivity.

The book Gogol in Life (1933) is built on the same principle.

A kind of continuation of the pre-revolutionary work on L. Tolstoy "Living Life" was Veresaev's article "The Artist of Life" ("Krasnaya Nov", 1921, No. 4). In it, the writer focused on the spiritual contradictions of the great writer.

Veresaev's Unfictional Stories, which he published in the 1940s, aroused great interest. These are short stories about people and events that the writer observed over many years of his life. They were created by an intelligent and observant artist who deeply understood the lessons of the past and knows the paths of the future.

During his long creative life, Vikenty Vikentievich Veresaev made a significant contribution to Russian literature. In the pre-October era, his work was part of a powerful stream of critical realism, which played a large positive role in the literary process.

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich (1867-1945), real name - Smidovich, Russian prose writer, literary critic, poet-translator. Born on January 4 (16), 1867 in a family of famous Tula ascetics.

Father, doctor V.I. Smidovich, the son of a Polish landowner, a participant in the uprising of 1830-1831, was the founder of the Tula city hospital and the sanitary commission, one of the founders of the Tula Doctors' Society, and a member of the City Duma. Mother opened the first kindergarten in Tula in her house.

What is life? What is its meaning? What is the purpose? There is only one answer: in life itself. Life itself is of the highest value, full of mysterious depths... We do not live to do good, just as we do not live to fight to love, eat or sleep. We do good, we fight, we eat, we love because we live.

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich

In 1884, Veresaev graduated from the Tula classical gymnasium with a silver medal and entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, after which he received the title of candidate. The family atmosphere in which the future writer was brought up was imbued with the spirit of Orthodoxy, active service to others. This explains Veresaev's passion for years for the ideas of populism, the works of N.K. Mikhailovsky and D.I. Pisarev.

Influenced by these ideas, Veresaev entered the medical faculty of Dorpat University in 1888, considering medical practice the best way to know the life of the people, and medicine - a source of knowledge about a person. In 1894, he practiced for several months at home in Tula, and in the same year, as one of the best graduates of the university, he was hired at the St. Petersburg Botkin Hospital.

Veresaev began to write at the age of fourteen (poems and translations). He himself considered the publication of the story Riddle (the magazine World Illustration, 1887, No. 9) to be the beginning of his literary activity.

In 1895, Veresaev was carried away by more radical political views: the writer made close contacts with revolutionary working groups. He worked in Marxist circles, meetings of the Social Democrats were held at his apartment. Participation in political life determined the themes of his work.

Veresaev used artistic prose to express socio-political and ideological views, showing in his novels and stories a retrospective of the development of his own spiritual quest. In his works, the predominance of such forms of narration as a diary, confession, disputes of heroes on the topics of the socio-political structure is noticeable. The heroes of Veresaev, like the author, were disappointed in the ideals of populism. But the writer tried to show the possibilities of further spiritual development of his characters. So, the hero of the story Bez Road (1895), the zemstvo doctor Troitsky, having lost his former beliefs, looks completely devastated. In contrast, the protagonist of the story On the Turn (1902) Tokarev finds a way out of his mental impasse and escapes suicide, despite the fact that he did not have definite ideological views and "went into the darkness, not knowing where." Veresaev puts many theses into his mouth, criticizing the idealism, bookishness and dogmatism of populism.

Having come to the conclusion that populism, despite its declared democratic values, has no basis in real life and often does not know it, in the story Advent (1898) Veresaev creates a new human type: a Marxist revolutionary. However, the writer also sees shortcomings in Marxist teaching: lack of spirituality, blind subordination of people to economic laws.

Vikenty Vikentievich Veresaev

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich (1867/1945) - Russian Soviet writer, critic, laureate of the USSR State Prize in 1943. The real name of the writer is Smidovich. V.'s artistic prose is characterized by a description of the searches and throwings of the intelligentsia in the transition from the 19th to the 20th centuries. ("Without a road", "Doctor's Notes"). In addition, Veresaev created philosophical and documentary works about a number of famous Russian writers (F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol).

Guryeva T.N. New literary dictionary / T.N. Guriev. - Rostov n / a, Phoenix, 2009, p. 47.

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich (real name Smidovich) - prose writer, translator, literary critic. Born in 1867 in Thule in the doctor's family. He graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University and the Medical Faculty of Dorpat University.

The first publication is the story "The Riddle" (1887). Under the influence of Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov, the main theme of Veresaev's work was formed - the life and spiritual quest of the Russian intelligentsia.

Author of a number of stories (Without a Road, 1895, At the Turn, 1902, the dilogy Two Ends: The End of Andrei Ivanovich and The Honest Way, 1899–1903, To Life, 1908), collections of short stories and essays, novels "At the Dead End" and "Sisters", as well as the dilogy "Living Life" ("About Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy", 1909, "Apollo and Dionysus. About Nietzsche", 1914). The publication of the book Notes of a Doctor (1901), devoted to the problem of professional ethics, caused the greatest public outcry.

A special place in Veresaev's work is occupied by Biographical Chronicles dedicated to Pushkin (Pushkin in Life, 1925–1926, Pushkin's Companions, 1937) and Gogol (Gogol in Life, 1933). Known for translations of ancient Greek classics (Homer, Hesiod, Sappho).

In 1943 he was awarded the Stalin Prize.

Materials of the magazine "Roman-gazeta" No. 11, 2009 were used. Pushkin's pages .

Vikenty Veresaev. Reproduction from www.rusf.ru

Veresaev (real name - Smidovich) Vikenty Vikentievich (1867 - 1945), prose writer, literary critic, critic.

Born on January 4 (16 n.s.) in Tula in the family of a doctor who was very popular both as a doctor and as a public figure. There were eight children in this close-knit family.

Veresaev studied at the Tula classical gymnasium, teaching was easy, he was "the first student." Most of all he succeeded in ancient languages, read a lot. At the age of thirteen he began to write poetry. In 1884, at the age of seventeen, he graduated from the gymnasium and entered St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of History and Philology, went through the history department. At that time, he enthusiastically participated in various student circles, "living in a tense atmosphere of the most acute social, economic and ethical issues."

In 1888 he graduated as a candidate of historical sciences and in the same year he entered the Medical Faculty of Derpt University, which shone with great scientific talents. For six years he was diligently engaged in medical science. During his student years he continued to write: first poetry, later - stories and novels. The first printed work was the poem "Meditation", a number of essays and stories were placed in the "World Illustration" and the books of the "Week" by P. Gaydeburov.

In 1894 he received a doctor's degree and practiced for several months in Tula under the guidance of his father, then went to St. Petersburg and entered the barach hospital as a supernumerary intern. In the fall, he finishes the long story "Without a Road", published in "Russian Wealth", where he was offered permanent cooperation. Veresaev joined the literary circle of Marxists (Struve, Maslov, Kalmykova, and others), maintained close relations with workers and revolutionary youth. In 1901 he was fired from the Barachnaya Hospital on the orders of the mayor and expelled from St. Petersburg. Lived in Tula for two years. When the expulsion period ended, he moved to Moscow.

Vikenty Veresaev. Photo from www.veresaev.net.ru

Great fame to Veresaev brought created on autobiographical material "Doctor's Notes" (1901).

When the war with Japan began in 1904, Veresaev, as a reserve doctor, was called up for military service. Returning from the war in 1906, he described his impressions in "Stories about the War".

In 1911, on the initiative of Veresaev, the "Book Publishing House of Writers in Moscow" was created, which he headed until 1918. During these years, he performed literary and critical studies ("Living Life" is devoted to the analysis of the work of F. Dostoevsky and L. Tolstoy). In 1917 he was chairman of the Artistic Education Commission under the Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies.

Vikenty Veresaev. Reproduction from www.veresaev.net.ru

In September 1918 he leaves for the Crimea, intending to live there for three months, but is forced to stay in the village of Koktebel, near Feodosia, for three years. During this time, Crimea changed hands several times, the writer had to endure a lot of hardships. In 1921 he returned to Moscow. Completes the cycle of works about the intelligentsia: the novels "At the Dead End" (1922) and "Sisters" (1933). He published a number of books compiled from documentary, memoir sources (Pushkin in Life, 1926-27; Gogol in Life, 1933; Pushkin's Companions, 1934-36). In 1940, his "Unfictional stories about the past" appeared. In 1943 Veresaev was awarded the State Prize. Veresaev died in Moscow on June 3, 1945.

Used materials of the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.

Vikenty Veresaev. Photo from www.veresaev.net.ru

Veresaev (real name Smidovich) Vikenty Vikentievich - writer, poet-translator, literary critic.

Born in the family of a doctor. His parents, Vikenty Ignatievich and Elizaveta Pavlovna Smidovichi, attached great importance to the religious and moral education of children, the formation in them of a sense of responsibility to people and themselves. Even during the years of study at the Tula classical gymnasium, Veresaev was seriously interested in history, philosophy, physiology, and showed a keen interest in Christianity and Buddhism.

After graduating from high school with a silver medal, Veresaev in 1884 entered the philological faculty of St. Petersburg University (historical department). Veresaev's first appearance in print dates back to 1885, when he (under the pseudonym V. Vikentiev) published the poem "Meditation" in the magazine Fashion Light and Fashion Store. Veresaev invariably considered the story “The Riddle” (1887) to be the beginning of his real literary work, in which the theme of overcoming loneliness, the birth of courage, the will to live and fight in him is touched upon. “Let there be no hope, we will win back hope itself!” - such is the leitmotif of the story.

After successfully completing his studies at the Faculty of Philology, Veresaev in 1888 entered the Derpt (now Tartu) University at the Faculty of Medicine. In his autobiography, he explained this decision as follows: “My dream was to become a writer, and for this it seemed necessary to know the biological side of man, his physiology and pathology; in addition, the specialty of a doctor made it possible to closely converge with people of the most diverse strata and ways. In Dorpat, the stories "Impulse" (1889), "Comrades" (1892) were written.

The most significant work of this period is the story "Without a Road" (1894), which V., according to him, entered the "great" literature. The hero of the story, zemstvo doctor Chekanov, expresses the thoughts and moods of that generation of intellectuals, who, as Veresaev believed then, “have nothing”: “Without a road, without a guiding star, it dies invisibly and irrevocably ... desperate attempts to get out of his power. One of the defining thoughts in the story should be considered the idea of ​​the hero and the author himself about the “chasm” separating the people and the intelligentsia: “We have always been alien and far away from them, nothing connected them with us. For them, we were people of another world...” The story's finale is nevertheless ambiguous. Chekanov, a victim of the era of "timelessness", inevitably dies, having exhausted all his spiritual potential, having tried all the "recipes". But he dies with a call to the new generation to "work hard and hard", "seek the way". Despite some schematism of the narrative, the work aroused wide interest among readers and critics.

After graduating from Dorpat University in 1894, Veresaev came to Tula, where he was engaged in private medical practice. In the same year, he went to St. Petersburg and became an intern at the Botkin Hospital. At this time, Veresaev begins to take a serious interest in Marxist ideas, gets acquainted with Marxists.

In 1897, he wrote the story The Pestilence, which is based on a tense dispute-dialogue between young Marxists (Natasha Chekanova, Daev) and representatives of the populist intelligentsia (Kiselev, Dr. Troitsky). The thesis of “historical necessity”, which should not only be obeyed, but also promoted, Dr. Troitsky counters with the idea that “you can’t chase after some abstract historical tasks when there are so many pressing matters around”, “life is more complicated than any schemes” .

Following the "Freak" Veresaev creates a series of stories about the village ("Lizar", "In the dry fog", "In the steppe", "To hurry", etc.). Veresaev does not confine himself to describing the plight of the peasants, he wants to truly capture their thoughts, morals, and characters. The ugliness of poverty does not obscure or cancel his ideal of the natural and the human. In the story “Lizar” (1899), which was especially noted by Chekhov, the social theme of “reduction of a person” (poor Lizar regrets the “overabundance” of people on a piece of land and stands up for “cleansing the people”, then “it will become freer to live”) intertwines with the motives of the eternal triumph of natural life ("To live, to live - to live a wide, full life, not to be afraid of it, not to break and not deny oneself - this was the great secret that nature revealed so joyfully and powerfully"). In the manner of narration, Veresaev's stories about the village are close to the essays and stories of G. Uspensky (especially from the book "The Power of the Earth"). Veresaev noted more than once that G. Uspensky was his favorite Russian writer.

In 1900, Veresaev completed one of his most famous works, which he had been working on since 1892, “Doctor's Notes”. Based on his personal experience and the experience of his colleagues, Veresaev stated with concern: “People do not have even the remotest idea either about the life of their body, or about the forces and means of medical science. This is the source of most misunderstandings, this is the reason for both blind faith in the omnipotence of medicine and blind disbelief in it. And both equally make themselves felt with very grave consequences. One of the critics, who called the book “a statement about the wonderful anxiety of the Russian conscience,” testified: “The human anthill was all stirred up and agitated before the confession of a young doctor who<...>betrayed professional secrecy and brought to the light of God both the instruments of struggle, and the psyche of the doctor, and all the contradictions that he himself was exhausted in front of. This confession reflected all the main features of Veresaev's work: observation, restless mind, sincerity, independence of judgment. The merit of the writer was the fact that many of the issues that the hero of the Notes struggles with are considered by him not only in purely medical, but also in ethical, socio-philosophical terms. All this made the book a huge success. The form of "Doctor's Notes" is an organic combination of fiction and journalism elements.

Veresaev seeks to expand the scope of artistic reflection of life. So, he writes the acutely social story "Two Ends" (1899-03) consisting of two parts. In the image of the craftsman Kolosov (“The End of Andrei Ivanovich”), Veresaev wanted to show a worker-craftsman, in the depths of whose soul “there was something noble and broad, pulling him into the open space from a cramped life.” But all the good impulses of the hero are in no way consistent with the gloomy reality, and he, exhausted by hopeless contradictions, dies.

The story "On the Turn" (1901) was another attempt by Veresaev to comprehend the Russian revolutionary movement. Here, again, the opinions of those who find the revolutionary path found seems bookish, far-fetched (Tokarev, Varvara Vasilievna), and those who recklessly believe in revolution (Tanya, Sergey, Borisoglebsky) clash again. The position of the writer himself on the eve of the first Russian revolution was characterized by doubts that people were ripe for an "explosive" reorganization of society; it seemed to him that a person is still very imperfect, the biological principle is too strong in him.

In the summer of 1904, Veresaev was drafted into the army as a doctor and until 1906 was in Manchuria, on the fields of the Russian-Japanese war. He reflected his thoughts, impressions, experiences related to these events in the cycle "Stories about the Japanese War" (1904-06), as well as in a book written in the genre of notes - "At War" (1906-07). These were a kind of "doctor's notes", in which V. captured all the horror and suffering of the war. Everything described led to the idea that the absurdities of the social structure had reached alarming proportions. V. more and more reflects on the real ways of transforming reality and man. The result of these reflections was the story "To Life" (1908), in which Versaev's concept of "living life" found its initial embodiment. V. explained the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe story this way: “In a long search for the meaning of life, at that time I finally came to firm, independent, not bookish conclusions,<...>who gave their own<...>knowledge - what is life and what is its "meaning". I wanted to put all my findings into the story...” The hero of the story, Cherdyntsev, is absorbed in the search for the meaning of life for all people. He wants to understand how the joy and fullness of human existence depend on external conditions and circumstances. Having traveled a long path of experience, searches, doubts, Cherdyntsev acquires a firm belief: the meaning of life lies in life itself, in the very natural flow of being (“All life was entirely one continuously unfolding goal, running away into the sunny clear distance”). The abnormal structure of society often deprives a person's life of this original meaning, but it exists, you need to be able to feel it and keep it in yourself. V. was struck by “how people are able to cripple living human life with their norms and schemes” (“Records for Myself”).

The main themes and motives of the story were developed in a philosophical and critical study, which Veresaev gave the program name - "Living Life". The first part is devoted to the work of L. Tolstoy and F. Dostoevsky (1910), the second - "Apollo and Dionysus" - mainly to the analysis of the ideas of F. Nietzsche (1914). Veresaev opposes Tolstoy to Dostoevsky, recognizing, however, the truth behind both artists. For Dostoevsky, Veresaev believes, a person is “a receptacle for all the most painful deviations of the life instinct”, and life is “a chaotic pile of fragments that are disconnected, not interconnected by anything.” In Tolstoy, on the contrary, he sees a healthy, bright beginning, the triumph of "living life", which "represents the highest value, full of mysterious depths." The book is of undoubted interest, but it must be borne in mind that V. sometimes “customizes” the ideas and images of writers to fit his concept.

Veresaev perceived the events of 1917 ambiguously. On the one hand, he saw the force that awakened the people, and on the other, the elements, the "explosion" of the latent dark principles in the masses. Nevertheless, Veresaev actively cooperates with the new government: he becomes the chairman of the artistic and educational commission under the Council of Workers' Deputies in Moscow, since 1921 he has been working in the literary subsection of the State Academic Council of the People's Commissariat for Education, and is also the editor of the art department of the Krasnaya Nov magazine. Soon he was elected chairman of the All-Russian Union of Writers. The main creative work of those years was the novel At a Dead End (1920-23), one of the first works about the fate of the Russian intelligentsia during the Civil War. The writer was worried about the theme of the collapse of traditional humanism in the novel. He realized the inevitability of this crash, but he could not accept it.

After this novel, Veresaev moved away from the present for some time.

In May 1925, in a letter to M. Gorky, he said: "I waved my hand and started studying Pushkin, writing memoirs - the most old man's business."

In 1926, Veresaev published a 2-volume edition of Pushkin in Life, which provides rich material for studying the poet's biography. This is a collection of biographical realities gleaned from various documents, letters, memoirs.

In the early 1930s, at the suggestion of M. Bulgakov, he began to work together on a play about Pushkin; later he left this work due to creative differences with M. Bulgakov. Veresaev's further work resulted in the books Gogol in Life (1933), Pushkin's Companions (1937).

In 1929 the Homeric Hymns, collections of translations (Homer, Hesiod, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Plato, and others) were published. For these translations, Veresaev was awarded the Pushkin Prize by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 1928-31, Veresaev worked on the novel Sisters, in which he sought to show the real everyday life of young intellectuals and workers in the era of the first five-year plan. One of the essential laws of that time, the heroine of the novel, Lelka Ratnikova, formulated for herself as follows: “... there is some kind of general law: whoever lives deeply and strongly in public work simply has no time to work on himself in the field of personal morality, and here everything is very confusing for him ... ”The novel, however, turned out to be somewhat schematic: Veresaev mastered the new reality more ideologically than artistically.

In 1937, Veresaev began a huge job of translating Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (more than 28,000 verses), which he completed in four and a half years. The translation, close to the spirit and language of the original, was recognized by connoisseurs as a serious achievement of the author. Translations were published after the death of the writer: "Iliad" - in 1949, and "Odyssey" - in 1953.

In the last years of his life, Veresaev created mainly works of memoir genres: “Non-fictional stories”, “Memories” (about childhood and student years, about meetings with L. Tolstoy, Chekhov, Korolenko, L. Andreev, etc.), “Records for myself "(According to the author, this is "something like a notebook, which includes aphorisms, excerpts from memoirs, various recordings of interesting episodes"). They clearly manifested that “connection with life”, to which Veresaev always gravitated in his work. In the preface to “Unfictional stories about the past”, he wrote: “Every year, novels, stories become less and less interesting to me, and more and more interesting - live stories about the really former ...” Veresaev became one of the founders of the genre of “non-fictional” stories-miniatures in Soviet prose.

Stubbornly seeking the truth in matters that worried him, Veresaev, completing his career, could rightfully say about himself: “Yes, I have a claim to this, to be considered an honest writer.”

V.N. Bystrov

Used materials of the book: Russian literature of the XX century. Prose writers, poets, playwrights. Biobibliographic dictionary. Volume 1. p. 365-368.

Read further:

Russian writers and poets (biographical guide).

Pushkin's pages. "Roman-gazeta" No. 11, 2009.

Compositions:

PSS: in 12 t. M., 1928-29;

SS: in 5 t. M., 1961;

Works: in 2 vols. M., 1982;

Pushkin in life. M., 1925-26;

Pushkin's Companions. M., 1937;

Gogol in life. M, 1933; 1990;

Uninvented stories. M., 1968;

At a dead end. Sisters. M., 1990.

Literature:

Vrzhosek S. Life and work of VV Veresaev. P., 1930;

Silenko A.F. VV Veresaev: Critical and biographical essay. Tula, 1956;

Geyser I.M.V. Veresaev: Writer-physician. M., 1957;

Vrovman G.V. VV Veresaev: life and work. M., 1959;

Babushkin Yu.V.V.Veresaev. M., 1966;

Nolde V.M. Veresaev: life and work. Tula, 1986.

Publications in the Literature section

Vikenty Veresaev. Writer, military doctor, biographer, translator

In Ikentiy Veresaev became interested in literature even in his gymnasium years, he published his first poem, "Meditation", at the age of 18. Later Veresaev became a doctor. He described his doctoral experience and literary research in books, created works about the revolution and translated ancient Greek poets.

"New people" in literature

Sergey Malyutin. Portrait of Vikenty Veresaev. 1919

At the end of the 19th century, Veresaev was carried away by radical political views. He spoke in Marxist circles and gathered Social Democrats at his home. In his autobiography, Veresaev wrote: “New people have come, cheerful and believing. They pointed to a rapidly growing and organizing force in the form of the factory worker. Underground work was in full swing, agitation was going on in factories and plants, and circle classes were held with workers. Many who were not convinced by theory were convinced by practice, including myself..

In 1894, Vikenty Veresaev wrote the story "Without a Road" about two generations who have lost their "guiding star" and do not know where to go next. Three years later, the main character of the story "The Pestilence" has already found her own way. In the same place as the author of the book - in Marxist circles and at political meetings. Vikenty Veresaev sensitively responded to the events in the country. He created works about workers and peasants: the story "The End of Andrei Ivanovich", the essays "On the Dead Road" and "Lizar", - in 1904-1905 he wrote "On the Japanese War". The young writer was looking for a genre in which journalism could combine with artistic description, and he found it - this is how a journalistic story appeared.

Over time, the revolutionary fervor in the writer faded. In 1922, Veresaev published the novel "At a Dead End" about the Sartanov family. In it, the author showed how society stratified during the years of upheavals. The characters of the novel - a father, a representative of the "old" intelligentsia, and revolutionary children - are doomed to misunderstanding and endless quarrels.

Medical school writer

Peter Karachentsov. Illustration for Vikenty Veresaev's book "Doctor's Notes". Photo: russkiymir.ru

Vikenty Veresaev is a student at St. Petersburg University. 1885 Photo: russkiymir.ru

Vikenty Veresaev in the Tula province. 1902 Photo: russkiymir.ru

At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a popular joke that in Russia most writers graduated from medical universities. Vikenty Veresaev is another confirmation of this. In 1894 he graduated from the medical faculty and began working as a doctor in his native Tula, and later in the Botkin hospital in St. Petersburg.

Vikenty Veresaev wrote a book about the doctor's work, Notes of a Doctor, in 1901. The biographical story told about the practice of a young doctor, his encounter with an unromantic reality, experiments on people and medical ethics. Although the Notes shocked the public, the work quickly became popular with readers, and Vikenty Veresaev became famous in the literary environment.

"A doctor - if he is a doctor, and not an official of the medical profession - must first of all fight for the elimination of those conditions that make his activity meaningless and fruitless, he must be a public figure in the broadest sense of the word."

Vikenty Veresaev

In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, Veresaev was called up for military service and sent to Manchuria as a military doctor. He served in the most difficult conditions, more than once he had to operate literally on the front line. He served as a front-line doctor later, during the First World War.

"Editor" of characteristics and opinions

In 1910, after the death of Leo Tolstoy, Veresaev created a voluminous work about two writers of the outgoing era, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The book "Living Life" is still popular among literary critics and biographers. Vikenty Veresaev considered it one of the most significant works in his work.

In the 1920s and 30s, Veresaev devoted almost all his time to the study of literature. During this period he wrote the books Pushkin in Life, Gogol in Life and Pushkin's Companions. Veresaev for the first time in Russian literature began to write biographies in a new genre - a chronicle of characteristics and opinions. For example, the book "Gogol in Life" had the subtitle "A Systematic Collection of Authentic Evidence from Contemporaries". The author did not give an interpretation of the events from the life of his character, did not describe them using artistic means. He created only a preface, comments and "mounted" historical facts, referring to sources.

Translator of ancient Greek poetry

Vikenty Veresaev. Photo: lr4.lsm.lv

Vikenty Veresaev and Leonid Andreev. 1912 Photo: wikimedia.org

Vikenty Veresaev. Photo: persons-info.com

Vikenty Veresaev was fond of translations. In 1919 he received the Pushkin Prize for translations of ancient Greek poetry. A few years later, Veresaev began working on new translations of Homer. He did not abandon the translation traditions of the Iliad and the Odyssey, which were created by Nikolai Gnedich, Vasily Zhukovsky and Nikolai Minsky. In the preface to the Iliad, Veresaev wrote: “Everything good, everything successful, the new translator should take with a handful from previous translations”. However, he saw shortcomings in them: Gnedich has an archaic language and an oversaturation of the text with Church Slavonic words; Minsky, as Veresaev wrote, was "sluggish and prosaic." In his text, he sought to get as close as possible to the ancient Greek original, to make the language of classical poetry closer and more understandable to the reader.

Anger, goddess, sing to Achilles, the son of Peleus,
Terrible, who did thousands of disasters to the Achaeans:
Many mighty souls of glorious heroes cast down
In gloomy Hades and spread them themselves for the benefit of carnivorous
To the surrounding birds and dogs (Zeus's will was performed), -
From that day on, as those who raised a dispute, flared up with enmity
The shepherd of the peoples Atrids and the noble hero Achilles.

An excerpt from the poem "Iliad", translated by Nikolai Gnedich

Sing, goddess, about the wrath of Achilles, the son of Peleus,
The cursed anger that brought countless suffering to the Achaeans,
Many strong souls of heroes sent to Hades,
Who gave them as prey to the greedy
Birds of the neighborhood and dogs. This was done by the will of Zeus,
Since the first time, quarreling, parted hostilely
The son of Atreus, the lord of men, and Pelid the many-lighted.

An excerpt from the poem "The Iliad", translated by Vikenty Veresaev

In 1929, Vikenty Veresaev published a collection of his works and translations. It also included poetry, including Works and Days and Hesiod's Theogony.