“I am writing about this not because I am Russian, but because it is true.”
If Fadeev had not killed himself in 1956, he would have left a bright mark in the history of Soviet literature as the author of the novels “Young Guard” and “Defeat”. On the day of his 120th birthday, “Gorky” reread the letters of Alexander Alexandrovich and chose the most important of them.
About myself
The circumstances of my life have thrown me far from my native village.
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My personal life is beautifully portrayed by Pushkin: “Onegin is a dwelling anchorite.”
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Perhaps, I was lucky in many ways in life, unlucky only in love …
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For two weeks I could not even think about work, then with a neurasthenic inconstancy – from time to time – soiled the sheets with such terrible shit that it could well be renamed into some kind of “Windbreak”, or “Roots”, or “Claws “.
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I have no works that would reflect the Crimea.
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When I was a boy, my mother, now such a feeble grandmother Nina, taught me, and my sister Tanya, and my brother Volodya to all kinds of domestic and agricultural work: we sewed on our own buttons that were torn off, put patches and closed up holes in our clothes, washed dishes and the floors in the house, they made the beds themselves, and in addition – they mowed, stung, knitted sheaves in the field, weeded, looked after vegetables in the garden. I had carpentry tools, especially my brother Volodya always made something. We ourselves have always sawed and chopped wood and stoked the stoves. From my childhood I knew how to harness a horse and saddle it.
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I have no luck with weather forecasts: only I have time to predict a good one, as the rains begin.
About “psychologism”
Some deeply our guys, for example, like Misha Chumandrin, in the process of their studies stick – in contrast to their basic attitude – unnecessary, sometimes just far-fetched psychological details in the actions, feelings and thoughts of the heroes (for example, in “The Former Hero”), because, striving to learn on our platforms, they do not always understand and feel that we do not need every psychologism, that psychologism by itself – this is, generally speaking, boredom.
About Bertrand de Jouvenel des Yursen (from a letter to Gorky dated June 30, 1931)
I was told at the International Bureau of Revolutionary Literature that the author of this chronicle is a social-fascist figure. Therefore, we consider it expedient to have this material in our press – what is useful in it for us. Is it true that you recommended this material? Is it true that Bertrand de Jouvenel is a social fascist?
(Three weeks later)
Bertrand de Jouvenel’s article appears in Book 8.
About literary mud
The creation by the proletariat of its own and new in the field of art is fraught with no less difficulties than in other fields. And many hunters suggest lighter paths – or crawl on their belly in front of the old (instead of the critical master’s assimilating it and overcoming it in order to rise to a higher level) – or write superficial poems and sketches “on the topic of the day”, passing them off as the most modern, progressive and proletarian. But on the “light” paths of these you will not create anything really new and your own and really big. If, under the rubbish of group squabbles and litigation (yes, it will be possible to have such a word) to probe basis Modern literary disagreements, it is quite clear that there is a struggle with all and sundry lovers of easy tracks.
About the theater
Were recently at the Bashkir theater. In the huge room built by Aksakov, very cheerful Bashkirs and Bashkirs walked, feeling their undoubted right to walk and laugh in this building. The play is about sabotage at a Bashkir copper smelter. The author – in the past a farm laborer, and now the chairman of the Bashkir Central Executive Committee – looked at his spectacle with naive eyes and was evidently glad that he had invented all this himself, had brought to life all this merry masquerade and roar. The main role – the old peasant, who discovered valuable ore deposits that want to hide the pests, and squeeze the peasant from the light – was played by a deaf old Bashkirin, in the past a Ural worker, who participated in Bashkir amateur performances for 25 years, now an honored artist of the republic. He played, I must say, very talentedly – the publication, more and more young people clapped furiously: there is no doubt that young people are of this breed, which will be excellent at mining and smelting ore.
About awards
Despite the fact that up to now many “hitchhikers” in the secret of their souls think that the bourgeoisie, perhaps, appreciated art better and more highly, in spite of this, this bourgeoisie has been the same since the Renaissance, when it (the bourgeoisie) was in good health, in fact , all the subsequent time kept great art in the backyard, annually boring hype around awards to uninteresting writers and people.
About Kostya Roslom
Suchansky poet Kostya Rosly never collaborated in the pre-revolutionary Vladivostok magazine “Great Ocean”. Before the revolution, he occasionally appeared in Vladivostok newspapers. His talent blossomed after the revolution, especially during the partisan period, in which Kostya Rosly was an active participant.
About beloved and unloved reading
The range of my “acceptance” – for example, both Sholokhov and Olesha – sometimes just scares me.
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Tolstoy is still the greatest and close for me a writer.
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Dreiser, in my opinion, is a dull gray cloth and not clever.
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I can’t digest Schiller organically.
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Enumerated the early Hamsun (“Pan”, “Victoria”, etc.). I read, blew my nose, looked at the portrait of the author – everything that is own seems amazingly dry, devoid of genuine, exciting feeling. Of course, the feelings that we must convey are immeasurably more powerful – both in volume and in content – but still …
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Nietzsche’s influence on world literature was truly enormous. It is no coincidence that Hamsun went to fascism!
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When behind the back of mankind there are thousands of years of terrible life, it is so easy and simple for a talented person to write about how hard it is for him to live in the world, how much suffering, grief, losses he has experienced! And that is why these things of Dos Passos, Hemingway, Celine – with all their fearless exposure of selfishness and suffering – cannot be an example for us.
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“Reading Faust” I, to my shame, have not read it yet.
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I read Reading Faust. And it is necessary to consider the question of whether this thing, entirely taking place in the conditions of Nazi Germany, is suitable, to print it in a magazine? Perhaps they will not understand, or, rather, they will misunderstand the fact of printing today in the periodical edition of the play, written on the material of military use atomic energy and not hitting the main enemy – American imperialism, again returning to fascist Germany, when today there is already a democratic Germany.
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Russian classics can be safely given to children to read: for all the rigidity of truthfulness in depicting the dark sides of life, Russian classics do not slide towards crude naturalism, towards physiology, which is characteristic, for example, of French realism since the time of Zola. I am writing about this not because I am Russian, but because it is true.
About poetry
The best poet in the world was Pushkin. Neither Shakespeare, nor Goethe, nor Byron, no matter how great they are, did not achieve such utmost sincerity, simplicity and diversity of feelings and thoughts.
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What poetry can there be if such poets as Tvardovsky, Simonov, Tikhonov, Bazhan, Samed Vurgun, Gribachev, Isakovsky, Kuleshov, Ventslova, Surkov, Rylsky, Shchipachev and some others do not work for thousands and thousands of poetic forces released by God, but on two canine forces, which make it possible to release from the burden of the so-called social burdens.
About Old Believers
Michu, Lysenko, Tsitsin and their followers, talents and opportunities were able to fully develop under the collective farm system, in genuine love of freedom. I never dreamed of it.
How to contact the addressees of letters
Dear Comrade Kuzmina!
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Dear comrade and fellow writer Rene Lear!
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Dear Comrade Ehrenburg!
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My dear Dmitry Nikolaevich!
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Dear Comrade Ambelikopulo!