Alexander Kuprin: biography of the writer. Literary and historical notes of young technician A and Kuprin years of life

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin- Russian writer of the early 20th century, who left a noticeable mark in literature. Throughout his life, he combined literary work with military service and travel, was an excellent observer of human nature and left behind stories, novellas and essays, performed in the genre of realism.

Early stages of life

Alexander Ivanovich was born in 1870 to a noble family, but his father died very early, and therefore the boy's growing up was difficult. Together with his mother, the boy moved from the Penza region to Moscow, where he was sent to a military gymnasium. This determined his life - in the following years he was somehow connected with military service.

In 1887, he entered to study as an officer, after another three years he finished his studies and went to an infantry regiment, stationed in the Podolsk province, as a second lieutenant. The year before, the press published the first story of the novice writer - "The Last Debut". And for four years of service, Alexander Ivanovich sent to print several more works - "In the Dark", "Inquiry", "Moonlit Night".

Most fruitful period and recent years

After retirement, the writer moved to live in Kiev, and then traveled around Russia for a long time, continuing to collect experience for the next works and periodically publishing stories and stories in literary magazines. In the early 1900s, he became closely acquainted with Chekhov, Bunin and moved to the northern capital. The most famous works of the writer - "Pomegranate Bracelet", "Pit", "Duel" and others - were published between 1900 and 1915.

At the beginning of the First World War, Kuprin was again called up for service and sent to the northern border, but he was quickly demobilized due to poor health. The revolution of 1917, Alexander Ivanovich perceived ambiguously - he reacted positively to the abdication of the tsar, but was against the Bolshevik regime and was more inclined towards the ideology of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Therefore, in 1918, like many others, he went into French emigration - but still returned to his homeland a year later to help the strengthened White Guard movement. When the counter-revolution was finally defeated, Alexander Ivanovich returned to Paris, where he lived quietly for many years and published new works.

In 1937, he returned to the Union at the invitation of the government, as he greatly yearned for his abandoned homeland. However, a year later he died of incurable esophageal cancer and was buried in St. Petersburg.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin is a talented and original Russian writer of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The personality of Kuprin, like his work, is an explosive mixture of a nobleman, a noble robber and a beggar wanderer. A huge, untreated precious nugget, which retains the primitive beauty and strength of character, the power and magnetism of personal charm.

Kuprin's biography briefly

Alexander Kuprin was born on August 26, 1870 in the Penza province. His father was a minor official of noble origin, and his mother's pedigree had Tatar roots. The boy became orphaned early and for almost seventeen years was in military state institutions - an orphanage, a gymnasium, a cadet, and later, a cadet school. Intellectual inclinations made their way through the shell of a military drill, and young Alexander had and strengthened the dream of becoming a poet or writer. At first there were youthful poems, but after military service in the provincial garrisons, the first stories and stories appear. The beginning writer takes the plot of these works from his own life. Kuprin's creative life begins with the story "Inquiry", written in 1894. In the same year, he retires and goes to wander around the south of Russia. competitions of athletes, worked at a plant in Donbass, served as a forest ranger in Volyn, studied to be a dental technician, played in a provincial theater and in a circus, worked as a surveyor. These wanderings enriched his life and writing experience. Gradually Kuprin became a professional writer, publishing his works in Not accepting the October Revolution, Kuprin emigrated and lived abroad until 1937. Nostalgia for his homeland responded not only to creative decline, but also to physical illness. Kuprin lived in Russia for only a year, after returning, and in August 1938 he died ...

Kuprin's creativity

In 1896 Kuprin writes and publishes the story "Moloch", which is the beginning of a new stage in the creative life of an aspiring writer and a completely new work for Russian literature. In 1898 he published the story "Olesya", the first of his few works about love. Naive and beautiful in its naivety, the pure love of a forest girl, or as her name is in the neighborhood of the "witch" Olesya, breaks down on the timidity and indecision of her beloved. A man of a different circle and worldview was able to awaken love, but failed to protect his beloved. , 20th century, Kuprin begins to publish in St. Petersburg magazines. The heroes of his works are ordinary people who know how to preserve honor and dignity, not betray friendship. In 1905, the story "Duel" was published, which the author dedicated to Maxim Gorky. Alexander Ivanovich writes about love and human devotion in the story "Shulamith" and the story "Pomegranate Bracelet". There are not so many works in world literature, where they describe so subtly a hopeless, unrequited, and at the same time selfless feeling of love, as Kuprin does in "The Garnet Bracelet."

• Alexander Kuprin himself is a great romantic, even in some ways an adventurer. In 1910, he rises in a hot air balloon.
• In the same year, but a little later, he was one of the first in Russia to fly an airplane.
• He sinks to the seabed, studying diving, and is friends with the Balaklava fishermen. And then everyone he meets in life appears on the pages of his works - from a millionaire capitalist to a beggar beggar.

Alexander Kuprin as a writer, a person and a collection of legends about his stormy life is a special love of the Russian reader, akin to the first youthful feeling for life. Ivan Bunin, jealous of his generation and rarely distributing praise, no doubt understood the inequality of everything Kuprin wrote, nevertheless he called him a writer by the grace of God.

And yet it seems that, by nature, Alexander Kuprin was supposed to become not a writer, but rather one of his heroes - a circus strongman, an aviator, the leader of the Balaklava fishermen, a horse thief, or, perhaps, he would pacify his violent temper somewhere in a monastery (by the way, he made such an attempt). The cult of physical strength, a penchant for gambling, risk-taking, riot were the distinguishing features of the young Kuprin. And later, he liked to measure his strength with life: at forty-three, he suddenly began to learn stylish swimming from the world record holder Romanenko, together with the first Russian pilot Sergei Utochkin, he climbed in a balloon, sank in a diving suit to the seabed, with the famous wrestler and aviator Ivan Zaikin flew on a Farman plane. However, the spark of God, as you can see, cannot be extinguished.

Kuprin was born in the town of Narovchat, Penza province on August 26 (September 7), 1870. His father, a petty official, died of cholera when the boy was not even two years old. In the family, left without funds, besides Alexander, there were two more children. The mother of the future writer Lyubov Alekseevna, nee Princess Kulunchakova, came from Tatar princes, and Kuprin loved to remember his Tatar blood, even, there was a time, he wore a skullcap. In the novel "Juncker", he wrote about his autobiographical hero: "... the frenzied blood of the Tatar princes, the irrepressible and indomitable of his ancestors on the maternal side, pushing him to harsh and thoughtless actions, distinguished him from the dozen cadets."

In 1874, Lyubov Alekseevna, a woman, according to memoirs, "with a strong, unyielding character and high nobility", decides to move to Moscow. There they settle in the common ward of the Widow's House (described by Kuprin in the story "Holy Lie"). Two years later, due to extreme poverty, she sends her son to the Aleksandrovskoe juvenile orphanage school. For six-year-old Sasha, the period of existence in a barracks position begins - seventeen years in length.

In 1880 he entered the Cadet Corps. Here the boy, yearning for home and freedom, draws closer to the teacher Tsukhanov (in the story "At the Turning Point" - Trukhanov), a writer who "remarkably artistically" read to the pupils of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev. The teenager Kuprin also begins to try his hand at literature - of course, as a poet; who at this age has not even once crumpled a sheet of paper with the first poem! He is fond of the then fashionable poetry of Nadson. At the same time, the cadet Kuprin is already a convinced democrat: the "progressive" ideas of the time seeped even through the walls of a closed military school. He angrily denounces in a rhymed form the "conservative publisher" MN Katkov and Tsar Alexander III himself, stigmatizes the "vile, terrible case" of the tsarist trial over Alexander Ulyanov and his accomplices who attempted to assassinate the monarch.

At the age of eighteen, Alexander Kuprin enters the Third Aleksandrovskoe cadet school in Moscow. According to the recollections of his classmate L. A. Limontov, he was no longer a "nondescript, small, clumsy cadet", but a strong young man, most of all valuing the honor of a uniform, a clever gymnast, a dancer who fell in love with every pretty partner.

His first appearance in print also belongs to the cadet period - on December 3, 1889, Kuprin's story “The Last Debut” appeared in the magazine “Russian Satirical Leaflet”. This story really almost became the first and last literary debut of the cadet. Later he recalled how, having received a fee in the amount of ten rubles for the story (for him then a huge amount), to celebrate, he bought his mother "goat boots", and for the remaining ruble rushed to the arena to dance on a horse (Kuprin was very fond of horses and considered this " the call of the ancestors "). A few days later, the magazine with his story caught the eye of one of the teachers, and Junker Kuprin was summoned to the authorities: "Kuprin, your story?" - "Yes sir!" - "To the punishment cell!" The future officer was not supposed to do such "frivolous" things. Like any debutant, he, of course, longed for compliments and in the punishment cell read his story to a retired soldier, an old school uncle. He listened attentively and said: “Well written, your honor! But you can’t understand anything ”. The story was indeed weak.

After the Alexander School, Second Lieutenant Kuprin was sent to the Dnieper Infantry Regiment, which was stationed in Proskurov, Podolsk province. Four years of life “in an incredible wilderness, in one of the bordering southwestern towns. Eternal dirt, herds of pigs on the streets, huts smeared with clay and dung ... "(" To glory "), hours-long drills of soldiers, gloomy officer revelations and vulgar romances with local" lionesses "made him think about the future, how he thinks about the hero of his famous story "The Duel", second lieutenant Romashov, who dreamed of military glory, but after the savagery of provincial army life, decided to retire.

These years gave Kuprin knowledge of the military life, the customs of the township intelligentsia, the customs of the Polesie village, and the reader was subsequently presented with such works of his as "Inquiry", "Night Lodging", "Night Shift", "Wedding", "Slavic Soul", "Millionaire" , "Zhidovka", "Coward", "Telegraphist", "Olesya" and others.

At the end of 1893 Kuprin submitted his resignation letter and left for Kiev. By that time he was the author of the story "In the Dark" and the story "Moonlit Night" (the magazine "Russian wealth"), written in the style of sentimental melodrama. He decides to seriously engage in literature, but this "lady" is not so easy to grasp. According to him, he suddenly found himself in the position of a schoolgirl, who was taken at night into the jungle of the Olonets forests and thrown without clothes, food and a compass; “... I had no knowledge, neither scientific nor everyday,” he writes in his Autobiography. In it, he gives a list of professions that he tried to master by taking off his military uniform: he was a reporter for Kiev newspapers, manager during the construction of a house, bred tobacco, served in a technical office, was a psalm reader, played in a theater in Sumy, studied dentistry, tried to get a haircut in monks, worked in a smithy and a carpentry workshop, unloaded watermelons, taught at a school for the blind, worked at the Yuzovsky steel plant (described in the story "Moloch") ...

This period ended with the publication of a small collection of essays "Kiev types", which can be considered Kuprin's first literary "drill". Over the next five years, he made a rather serious breakthrough as a writer: in 1896 he published the story “Moloch” in Russkoye Wealth, where the rebellious working class was shown for the first time on a large scale, published the first collection of stories “Miniatures” (1897), which included “Dog happiness "," Centenary "," Breguet "," Allez! " and others, followed by the story "Olesya" (1898), the story "Night shift" (1899), the story "At the Turning Point" ("Cadets"; 1900).

In 1901 Kuprin came to St. Petersburg as a rather famous writer. He already knew Ivan Bunin, who immediately upon arrival introduced him to the house of Alexandra Arkadyevna Davydova, the publisher of the popular literary magazine Mir Bozhiy. There were rumors about her in Petersburg that she would lock up writers who begged her for an advance in her office, give them ink, a pen, paper, three bottles of beer, and release them only on condition of a finished story, immediately giving out a fee. In this house Kuprin found his first wife - the flamboyant, Hispanic Maria Karlovna Davydova, the publisher's adopted daughter.

A capable student of her mother, she, too, had a firm hand in dealing with the writing brethren. For at least seven years of their marriage - the time of Kuprin's greatest and stormy glory - she managed to keep him at his desk for quite long periods (up to the deprivation of breakfast, after which Alexander Ivanovich felt sleepy). Under her, works were written that put Kuprin in the first row of Russian writers: the stories "Swamp" (1902), "Horse thieves" (1903), "White Poodle" (1904), the story "Duel" (1905), stories "Headquarters Captain Rybnikov "," The River of Life "(1906).

After the release of "Duel", written under the great ideological influence of the "petrel of the revolution" Gorky, Kuprin became an All-Russian celebrity. Attacks on the army, exaggeration of colors - downtrodden soldiers, ignorant, drunken officers - all this "indulged" the tastes of the revolutionary-minded intelligentsia, who considered the defeat of the Russian fleet in the Russo-Japanese war their victory. This story, no doubt, was written by the hand of a great master, but today it is perceived in a slightly different historical dimension.

Kuprin passes the most powerful test - fame. “It was time,” Bunin recalled, “when the publishers of newspapers, magazines and collections on reckless drivers chased him around ... restaurants in which he spent days and nights with his random and constant drinking companions, and humiliatedly begged him to take a thousand, two thousands of rubles in advance for only one promise not to forget them on occasion by his mercy, and he, overweight, big-faced, only squinted, was silent and suddenly abruptly threw in such an ominous whisper: "Get the hell out of this moment!" fell through the ground. " Dirty taverns and expensive restaurants, beggar tramps and polished snobs of St. Petersburg bohemians, gypsy singers and runners, finally, an important general thrown into a pool with sterlet ... - the whole set of "Russian recipes" for the treatment of melancholy, which for some reason pours out noisy fame, was tried by him (how can you not recall the phrase of Shakespeare's hero: "What is the expression of the melancholy of a great-spirit person? In the fact that he wants to drink").

By this time, the marriage with Maria Karlovna, apparently, had exhausted itself, and Kuprin, who does not know how to live by inertia, with youthful fervor falls in love with the teacher of his daughter Lydia - a small, fragile Lisa Geynrikh. She was an orphan and had already gone through her bitter story: she visited the Russian-Japanese war as a sister of mercy and returned from there not only with medals, but also with a broken heart. When Kuprin, without delay, declared his love to her, she immediately left their house, not wanting to be the cause of the family discord. After her, Kuprin left home, having rented a room in the St. Petersburg hotel "Palais Royal".

For several weeks he rushes around the city in search of poor Liza and, of course, is overgrown with a sympathetic company ... When his great friend and admirer of talent, professor of St. where she got a job as a sister of mercy. What was he talking to her about? Maybe that she should save the pride of Russian literature ... Unknown. Only Elizaveta Moritsovna's heart quivered and she agreed to immediately go to Kuprin; however, with one firm condition: Alexander Ivanovich must be treated. In the spring of 1907, the two of them left for the Finnish sanatorium "Helsingfors". This great passion for the little woman became the reason for the creation of the wonderful story "Shulamith" (1907) - the Russian "Song of Songs". In 1908, they had a daughter, Ksenia, who would later write her memoirs “Kuprin is my father”.

From 1907 to 1914 Kuprin created such significant works as the stories "Gambrinus" (1907), "The Garnet Bracelet" (1910), the cycle of stories "Listrigona" (1907-1911), in 1912 he began work on the novel "The Pit". When he came out, critics saw in him an exposure of another social evil in Russia - prostitution, while Kuprin considered paid "priestesses of love" to be victims of social temperament from time immemorial.

By this time, he had already disagreed with Gorky in political views, withdrew from revolutionary democracy. The war of 1914 Kuprin called just, liberation, for which he was accused of "state patriotism." A large photograph of him appeared in the St. Petersburg newspaper Nov 'with the caption: “A. I. Kuprin, drafted into the army ”. However, he did not get to the front - he was sent to Finland to train recruits. In 1915, he was declared unfit for military service for health, and he returned home to Gatchina, where his family lived at that time.

After the seventeenth year, despite several attempts, Kuprin did not find a common language with the new government (although, under the patronage of Gorky, he even met with Lenin, but he did not see a "clear ideological position" in him) and left Gatchina together with the retreating army of Yudenich. In 1920, the Kuprins ended up in Paris.

After the revolution, about 150 thousand emigrants from Russia settled in France. Paris became the Russian literary capital - Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius, Ivan Bunin and Alexei Tolstoy, Ivan Shmelev and Alexei Remizov, Nadezhda Teffi and Sasha Cherny, and many other famous writers lived here. All sorts of Russian societies were formed, newspapers and magazines were published ... There was even such an anecdote: there are two Russians on the Parisian boulevard. "Well, how are you doing here?" - "Nothing, you can live, one problem: there are too many French."

At first, while the illusion of the homeland taken away with him still lingered, Kuprin tried to write, but his gift gradually faded away, like his once mighty health, more and more often he complained that he could not work here, because he was used to "writing off" his heroes from life ... “They are wonderful people,” Kuprin said about the French, “but he doesn’t speak Russian, and in the shop and in the pub, it’s not our way everywhere ... So this is what - you’ll live, live, and you’ll stop writing.”

His most significant work of the émigré period is the autobiographical novel Juncker (1928-1933).

He became more and more quiet, sentimental - unusual for his acquaintances. Sometimes, however, the hot Kuprin blood nevertheless made itself felt. Once the writer was returning with friends from a suburban restaurant by taxi, and they started talking about literature. Poet Ladinsky called "The Duel" his best work. Kuprin insisted that the best of all that he wrote was "Garnet Bracelet": there are high, precious feelings of people. Ladinsky called this story implausible. Kuprin was furious: "'The' Garnet bracelet 'is a reality!" and challenged Ladinsky to a duel. With great difficulty, we managed to dissuade him, rolling all night around the city, as Lydia Arsenyeva recalled (“Dalnie shores”. M .: “Respublika”, 1994).

Apparently, Kuprin really had something very personal connected with the "Garnet Bracelet". At the end of his life, he himself began to resemble his hero - the aged Zheltkov. "Seven years of hopeless and polite love" Zheltkov wrote unrequited letters to Princess Vera Nikolaevna. The aged Kuprin was often seen in a Parisian bistro, where he sat alone with a bottle of wine and wrote love letters to an unfamiliar woman. The magazine Ogonyok (1958, No. 6) published a poem by the writer, possibly composed at that time. There are lines like this:

And no one in the world will know
That for years, every hour and moment,
It languishes and suffers from love
A polite, attentive old man.

Before leaving for Russia in 1937, he no longer recognized anyone, and even he was hardly recognized. Bunin writes in his "Memoirs": "... I once met him on the street and gasped inwardly: and there was no trace of the former Kuprin!" He walked with small, pitiful steps, trudging so thin, weak that it seemed that the first gust of wind would blow him off his feet ... "

When Kuprin's wife took Kuprin to Soviet Russia, the Russian emigration did not condemn him, realizing that he was going there to die (although such things were perceived painfully in the emigre environment; they said, for example, that Alexei Tolstoy simply fled to Sovdepia from debts and creditors) ... For the Soviet government, this was politics. In the newspaper Pravda, dated June 1, 1937, a note appeared: “On May 31, the famous Russian pre-revolutionary writer Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, who returned from emigration to his homeland, arrived in Moscow. At the Belorussky railway station, A. I. Kuprin was met by representatives of the writers' community and the Soviet press. "

They settled Kuprin in a rest house for writers near Moscow. One sunny summer day, Baltic sailors came to visit him. Alexander Ivanovich was carried in an armchair onto the lawn, where the sailors sang for him in chorus, approached, shook hands, said that they had read his "Duel", thanked ... Kuprin was silent and suddenly burst into tears (from the memoirs of N.D. ").

He died on August 25, 1938 in Leningrad. In his last emigre years, he often said that one should die in Russia, at home, like an animal that goes off to die in its den. I would like to think that he passed away reassured and reconciled.

Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin is a well-known realist writer, whose works resonated in the hearts of readers. His work was distinguished by the fact that he strove not only to actually correctly reflect the events, but most of all by the fact that Kuprin was interested in the inner world of a person much more than just a reliable description. A short biography of Kuprin will be described below: childhood, adolescence, creative activity.

Childhood years of the writer

Kuprin's childhood could not be called carefree. The writer was born on August 26, 1870 in the Penza province. Kuprin's parents were: a hereditary nobleman I. I. Kuprin, who held the position of an official, and L. A. Kulunchakova, who came from a clan of Tatar princes. The writer was always proud of his mother's origin, 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 higher officials in order to attach her daughters to the state boarding house. She herself, taking her son with her, moved to Moscow and got a job in the Widows House, in which the future writer lived with her for two years.

Later he was enrolled in the state account of the Moscow Board of Trustees in an orphanage school. Kuprin's childhood there was bleak, full of sorrow and reflections on the fact that a person is trying to suppress his self-esteem. After this school, Alexander entered a military gymnasium, later transformed into a cadet corps. These were the prerequisites for the formation of an officer's career.

The writer's youth

Kuprin's childhood was not easy, and his studies in the cadet corps were also not easy. But it was then that he first had a desire to study literature and he began to write his first poems. Of course, the strict living conditions of the cadets, the military drill tempered the character of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, strengthened his will. Later, his memories of childhood and adolescence will be reflected in the works of "Cadets", "Brave Runaways", "Juncker". It was not in vain that the writer always emphasized that his creations are largely autobiographical.

Kuprin's military youth began with his admission to the Moscow Aleksandrovsk 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 drilling, injustice, cruelty - all this was reflected in his stories, such as, for example, "The Lilac Bush", "Campaign", the story "The Last Duel", thanks to which he received all-Russian fame.

The beginning of a literary career

His entry into the ranks of writers dates back to 1889, when his story "The Last Debut" was published. Later Kuprin said that when he left military service, the most difficult thing for him was that he did not have any 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 it not because he could not decide on the further 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 studying life, the writer took his first steps in the literary field - he published articles, wrote feuilletons, essays. A significant event in his life was cooperation with the authoritative magazine "Russian wealth". It was in it in the period from 1893 to 1895 that "In the Dark" and "Inquiry" were published. In the same period Kuprin met I. A. Bunin, A. P. Chekhov and M. Gorky.

In 1896 Kuprin's first book - "Types of Kiev" was published, a collection of his essays and the story "Moloch" was published. A year later, a collection of 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 heroes. But this does not mean that the writer was not worried about the plight of the common population. The story "Moloch", which brought fame to the young writer, tells about the difficult, even disastrous, working conditions for the workers of one large steel plant.

The work received this name for a reason: the writer compares this enterprise with the pagan god, Moloch, who requires constant human sacrifice. The aggravation of the social conflict (the workers' revolt against the bosses) was not the main thing in the work. Kuprin was more interested in how the modern bourgeoisie can adversely affect a person. Already in this work, one can notice the writer's interest in the personality of a person, his experiences, reflections. Kuprin wanted to show the reader what a person feels when faced with social injustice.

A Story of Love - "Olesya"

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

All created images are poetic in nature, especially the image of the main character Olesya. The work tells about the tragic love between a girl and a storyteller, Ivan Timofeevich, an aspiring writer. He came to the wilderness, in 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 to do with the usual image of such women. In her, beauty is combined with inner strength, nobility, a little naivety, but at the same time, there is a strong will and a little bit of authority in her. And her fortune-telling is not associated 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 to be no equal to him. The story ends sadly: Ivan did not manage to see Olesya for the second time, and in memory of her he had only red beads. 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 took an important place in Kuprin's work was "Duel". It was published in May 1905, already at the end of the Russo-Japanese War. A.I. Kuprin wrote the whole truth of the army's customs on the example of one regiment located in a provincial town. The central theme of the work is the formation of the personality, its spiritual awakening on the example of the hero Romashov.

The "duel" can also be explained as a personal battle between the writer and the stupefying everyday life of the tsarist army, which are destroying all the best that is in man. This work became 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.

The psychological side of the works

In his stories, Kuprin acts as an expert on psychological analysis precisely because he always tried to understand what drives a person, what feelings govern him. In 1905, the writer went to Balaklava and from there traveled to Sevastopol to make notes about the events that took place on the rebel 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 "Listriginovs", where the main persons are simple fishermen. The writer describes their hard work, character, which were close in spirit to the writer himself.

In the story "Headquarters Captain Rybnikov" the psychological talent of the writer is fully revealed. The journalist is conducting a covert 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 kind of internal struggle is going on in him. This story has been highly acclaimed by readers and critics.

Love theme

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

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

Personal life of the writer

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-Geynrikh, with whom he married in 1909, although before this event they had 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 survived Kuprin for 4 years and ended her life by suicide during the blockade 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 an infirmary from his home for wounded soldiers. Kuprin expected the February Revolution, but, like most, 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 in emigration were fruitful. The works written by him were popular with the public. But, despite this, Kuprin yearned more and more for Russia, and in 1936 the writer decided to return to his homeland.

The last years of the writer's life

As Kuprin's childhood was not easy, so the last years of his life were not easy. His return to the USSR in 1937 caused a stir. On May 31, 1937, he was greeted 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 recuperate and continue to engage in literary activity. But on August 25, 1938, Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin died.

AI Kuprin was not just a writer who told about various events. He studied human nature, sought to know the character of each person with whom he met. Therefore, reading his stories, readers empathize with the heroes, feel sad and happy with them. A.I. Kuprin holds a special place in Russian literature.

A mysterious house on the outskirts of Gatchina had a bad reputation. It was rumored that there was a brothel here. Because music until late at night, songs, laughter. And, by the way, FI Chaliapin (1873-1938) sang, A. T. Averchenko (1881-1925) and his colleagues from the Satyricon magazine laughed. And also Alexander Kuprin, a friend and neighbor of the owner of the house, the extravagant cartoonist P.E.Shcherbov (1866-1938), often visited here.

October 1919

Leaving Gatchina with the retreating Yudenich, Kuprin will run here for a few minutes to ask Shcherbov's wife to pick up the most valuable things from his house. She will fulfill the request, and among other things, will capture a framed photo of Kuprin. Shcherbova knew that this was his favorite picture, so she kept it as a relic. She did not even know what secret the portrait was hiding.

The Mystery of the Daguerreotype

And now the photograph of the writer becomes an exhibit of the museum.
During the drawing up of the act by the museum workers, under the cardboard of the frame, on the back side, a negative of another photograph was found. There is an image of an unknown woman on it. Who is this lady, whose image Kuprin, like the seamy side of his soul, kept, protecting from the gaze of others.

Biography of Kuprin, interesting facts

Once at a literary banquet, a young poetess (the future wife of the writer Alexei Tolstoy (1883-1945)) drew attention to a dense man who looked at her point-blank, as the poetess seemed to have evil, bear eyes.
“The writer Kuprin,” a table neighbor whispered in her ear. - Don't look in his direction. He is drunk"

This was the only time when retired lieutenant Alexander Kuprin was impolite to a lady. In relation to the ladies, Kuprin has always been a knight. Over the manuscript of the "Garnet Bracelet", Kuprin wept and said that he had not written anything more chaste. However, readers' opinions were divided.

Some called the Pomegranate Bracelet the most tiring and fragrant of all love stories. Others considered it gilded tinsel.

Failed duel

Already in exile the writer A. I. Vvedensky (1904-1941) told Kuprin that the plot in the "Pomegranate Bracelet" was not believable. After such words, Kuprin challenged his opponent to a duel. Vvedensky accepted the challenge, but then everyone who was near intervened, and the duelists were reconciled. However, Kuprin still stood his ground, claiming that his work was a reality. It was clear that there was something deeply personal connected with the "Garnet Bracelet".
It is still unknown who that lady was, the inspirer of the great work of the writer.

In general, Kuprin did not write poems, but one thing, he still published in one of the magazines:
“You are funny with gray hair ...
What can I say to this?
That love and death owns us?
That their orders cannot be avoided? "

In the poem and The Pomegranate Bracelet, you can see the same tragic leitmotif. Unrequited, some kind of exalted and uplifting love for an inaccessible woman. Whether she really existed, and what her name is, we do not know. Kuprin was a chivalrously chaste man. He didn’t let anyone into the secret places of his soul.

A short love story

In exile in Paris, Kuprin took on the trouble of preparing the wedding of I. A. Bunin (1870-1953) and Vera Muromtseva (1981-1961), who had been in a civil marriage for 16 years. Finally, the first wife of Ivan Alekseevich agreed to a divorce, and Kuprin offered to organize a wedding. He was the best man. Negotiated with the priest, sang along with the choir. He really liked all the church rituals, but this one especially.

In those days, Kuprin wrote about the most romantic love of his youth, Olga Sur, a circus rider. Kuprin remembered Olga all his life, and in the cache of the portrait of the writer, it is quite possible that there was precisely her image.

Paris period

Paris was tensely awaiting the decision of the Nobel Committee. Everyone knew that they wanted to give the prize to a Russian exiled writer, and three candidates were being considered: D. S. Merezhkovsky (1865-1941), I. A. Bunin and A. I. Kuprin. Dmitry Merezhkovsky's nerves could not stand it, and he suggested that Bunin conclude an agreement, no matter who of them two was given a prize, all the money should be divided in half. Bunin refused.

Kuprin did not say a word about the Nobel Prize. He has already received one Pushkin Prize for two with Bunin. In Odessa, having drunk the last banknote, Kuprin, at the restaurant, moistened the bill, and stuck it on the forehead of the doorman who was standing next to him.

Acquaintance with I. A. Bunin

I. A. Bunin and A. I. Kuprin met in Odessa. Their friendship was very much like a rivalry. Kuprin called Bunin Richard, Albert, Vasya. Kuprin said: “I hate the way you write. It dazzles in the eyes. " Bunin, on the other hand, considered Kuprin to be talented, and loved the writer, but endlessly looked for errors in his language and not only.
Even before the 1917 revolution, he said to Alexander Ivanovich: "Well, you are a nobleman by your mother." Kuprin squeezed the silver spoon into a ball and threw it into the corner.

Moving to France

Bunin dragged Kuprin from Finland to France, and found him an apartment in a house on Jacques Offenbach Street, on the same staircase with his apartment. And then Kuprin's guests began to annoy him, and endless noisy goodbyes at the elevator. The Kuprins moved out.

Acquaintance with Musya

Many years ago, it was Bunin who dragged Kuprin in St. Petersburg to a house on Razyezzhaya Street, 7. He had long known Musya, Maria Karlovna Davydova (1881-1960), and began to joke that he had brought Kuprin to marry her. Musya supported the joke, a whole scene was played. Everyone had a lot of fun.

At that time, Kuprin was in love with the daughter of his friends. He really liked the state of falling in love, and when he was not there, he invented it for himself. Alexander Ivanovich also fell in love with Musya, he began to call her Masha, despite protests that this is the name of the cooks.
The publisher Davydova brought up an aristocrat in her, and few people remembered that the girl was thrown into this house as a baby. Young, pretty Musya was spoiled by laughter, unkind, not young. She could make fun of anyone. There were a lot of people around her. Fans courted, Musya flirted.

The beginning of family life

Feeding rather friendly feelings for Kuprin, she nevertheless married him. He took a long time to choose a wedding gift, and finally bought a beautiful gold watch from an antique shop. Musa did not like the gift. Kuprin crushed the watch with his heel.
Musya Davydova loved after the receptions to tell who looked after her, she liked how Kuprin was jealous.

This large and wild beast turned out to be completely tame. Holding back his rage, he somehow crumpled a heavy silver ashtray into a cake. He smashed her portrait in a heavy massive frame, and once set fire to Musa's dress. However, the wife, from childhood, was distinguished by an iron will, and Kuprin experienced this on himself.

A fine line

Not knowing what would come of it, Musya Davydova brought him to visit her beloved. Their apartment was located in the same building. To entertain the guests, the head of the family showed an album containing letters from a stranger to his bride, and then to his wife Lyudmila Ivanovna. The unknown sang and blessed every moment of this woman's life, starting from birth.

He kissed her footprints and the ground on which she walked, and for Easter he sent a gift - a cheap blown gold bracelet with several pomegranate stones. Kuprin sat as if struck by thunder. Here it is that same love, he was then working on "Duel" and under the impression wrote the following: "Love has its peaks, accessible only to a few out of millions."

Unrequited love is insane bliss that is never dulled. Precisely because it is not quenched by a reciprocal feeling. This is the highest happiness. " According to literary experts, this meeting gave rise to the "Garnet Bracelet".

Community recognition

Kuprin gained particular popularity after the words of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910): "Of the young, he writes better." A crowd of fans accompanied him from one restaurant to another. And after the release of the story "Duel", AI Kuprin became truly famous. The publishers offered him any royalties in advance that could be better. But few people noticed that at this time he suffered a lot. Kuprin coped with his feelings so - he simply left for Balaklava, sometimes straight from the restaurant.

Crimean period

Here in Balaklava, alone with himself, he wanted to make a decision. The strong will of his wife suppressed his freedom. For the writer, it was like death. He could give everything for the opportunity to be himself, so as not to sit all day at the desk, but to observe life, to communicate with ordinary people.

In Balaklava, he especially liked to communicate with local fishermen. He even decided to buy his own piece of land to build his own garden and build a house. Generally speaking, he wanted to settle here. Kuprin passed all the tests to join the local fishing artel. He learned to knit nets, tie ropes, tar up leaky boats. The artel accepted Kuprin and he went to sea with fishermen.

He liked all those signs that the fishermen observed. You can't whistle on the launch, spit only overboard, not mention the devil. Leave a small fish in the tackle, as if by accident, for further fishing happiness.

Creativity in Yalta

From Balaklava, Alexander Kuprin was very fond of going to Yalta to see A.P. Chekhov (1960-1904). He liked talking to him about everything. A.P. Chekhov took an active part in the fate of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin. Once he helped to move to St. Petersburg, recommended it to publishers. He even offered a room in his Yalta house so that Kuprin could work in peace. A.P. Chekhov introduced Alexander Ivanovich to the winemakers of the Massandra plant.

The writer needed to study the process of making wine for the story "Wine Barrel". A sea of ​​Madeira, Muscat and other Massandra temptations, what could be more beautiful. AI Kuprin drank a little, enjoying the aroma of the magnificent Crimean wine. This is how Anton Chekhov knew him, knowing perfectly well the reasons for the spree of his comrade.
During this period of life, the Kuprins expected the birth of a child.

Musya Davydova was pregnant (daughter Lydia was born in 1903). Constant whims and tears several times a day, fears of a pregnant woman about the upcoming birth, were the reasons for family quarrels. Once Musya broke a glass decanter on Kuprin's head. Thus, her behavior resolved all his doubts.

Nobel laureate

On November 9, 1933, the Nobel Committee announced its decision. I. A. Bunin received the prize. He allocated 120 thousand francs from it in favor of needy writers. Kuprin was given five thousand. He did not want to take money, but there was no means of subsistence. Daughter Ksenia Aleksandrovna Kuprina (1908-1981) acts in films, outfits are needed, how many old things can be altered.

Childhood of the writer

Alexander Kuprin called his childhood the most vile period of his life and the most beautiful. The county town Narovchat of the Penza province, in which he was born, Kuprin imagined all his life as the promised land.
The soul was torn there and there were three heroes with whom he performed feats of arms. Sergei, Innokenty, Boris - these are three Kuprin brothers who died in infancy. The family already had two daughters, but the boys were dying.

Then the pregnant Lyubov Alekseevna Kuprina (1838-1910) went to the elder for advice. The wise elder taught her, when a boy is born, and this will be on the eve of Alexander Nevsky, to name him Alexander and order an icon of this saint in the size of a baby and everything will be fine.
Exactly one year later, almost on the birthday of the future writer, his father, Ivan Kuprin, died (whose biography is not very remarkable). The proud Tatar princess Kulanchakova (married Kuprin) was left alone with three small children.

Kuprin's father was not an exemplary family man. Frequent spree and drinking with local comrades forced the children and wife to live in constant fear. The wife hid her husband's hobbies from local gossip. After the death of the breadwinner, the house in Narovchat was sold and she went with little Sasha to Moscow to the widow's house.

Moscow life

Kuprin spent his childhood surrounded by old women. Rare visits to his mother's rich Penza girlfriends were not a holiday for him. If they began to serve a sweet holiday cake, then the mother began to assure that Sasha did not like sweets. That he can only be given a dry edge of the pie.

Sometimes she presented a silver cigarette case to her son's nose and amused the owner's children: “This is my Sasha's nose. He is a very ugly boy and this is very embarrassing. " Little Sasha decided to pray to God every evening and ask God to make him pretty. When the mother left for her son to behave himself quietly and not to anger the old women, she tied his leg with a rope to a chair or outlined a circle with chalk, beyond which one should not leave. She loved her son and sincerely believed that she was doing better for him.

Death of mother

From his first writing fee, Kuprin bought his mother shoes and later sent part of all his earnings to her. More than anything, he was afraid of losing her. Kuprin gave his mother a promise that he would not bury her, but she would bury him first.
Mother wrote: "I am hopeless, but you do not come." This was the last letter from my mother. The son filled his mother's coffin to the brim with flowers, and invited the best singers in Moscow. The death of his mother, Kuprin called the funeral of his youth.

Rural period from the life of A. I. Kuprin

That summer (1907) he lived in Danilovskoye, on the estate of his friend, the Russian philosopher FD Batyushkov (1857-1920). He really liked the flavor of the local nature and its inhabitants. The peasants highly respected the writer, calling him Alexandra Ivanovich the Bought. The writer liked the village customs of ordinary people. Once Batiushkov took him to his neighbor, the famous pianist Vera Sipyagina-Lilienfeld (18 ?? - 19 ??).

That evening she played Beethoven's Appassionata, putting into the music the suffering of a hopeless feeling that had to be deeply hidden from everyone. At the age of well over 40, she fell in love with a handsome man who was suitable for her sons. It was love without a present and without a future. Tears rolled down her cheeks, the game shocked everyone. It was there that the writer met the young Elizabeth Geynrikh, the niece of another great writer, D.N.Mamin-Sibiryak (1852-1912).

F. D. Batyushkov: a saving plan

Kuprin confessed to FD Batyushkov: “I love Lisa Geynrikh. I do not know what to do". That same evening in the garden during a dazzling summer thunderstorm, Kuprin told Lisa everything. In the morning she disappeared. Liza likes Kuprin, but he is married to Musa, who is like a sister to her. Batyushkov found Liza and convinced her that Kuprin's marriage had already fallen apart, that Alexander Ivanovich would get drunk, and Russian literature would lose a great writer.

Only she, Lisa, can save him. And it was true. Musya wanted to sculpt from Alexander everything she wanted, and Liza allowed this element to rage, but without destructive consequences. In other words, be yourself.

Unknown facts from the biography of Kuprin

Newspapers were choked with sensation: "Kuprin in the role of a diver." After a free flight with the pilot S. I. Utochkin (1876-1916) in a hot air balloon, he, a fan of strong sensations, decided to sink to the bottom of the sea. Kuprin had a lot of respect for extreme situations. And he reached out to them in every possible way. There was even a case when Alexander Ivanovich and the fighter I.M.Zaikin (1880-1948) crashed in an airplane.

The plane is shattered, and the pilot and the passengers have nothing to do with it. "Nikolai the Pleasant saved," Kuprin said. At this time, Kuprin already had a newborn daughter, Ksenia. Liza even lost her milk from such news.

Moving to Gatchina

The arrest was a big surprise for him. The reason was Kuprin's article about the cruiser "Ochakov". The writer was evicted from Balaklava without the right to live. Alexander Kuprin witnessed the insurgent sailors of the cruiser "Ochakov", and wrote about it in the newspaper.
In addition to Balaklava, Kuprin could only live in Gatchina. The family is here, and they bought a house. A garden and a vegetable garden appeared, which Kuprin cultivated with great love, together with his daughter Ksenia. Daughter Lidochka also came here.

During the First World War, Kuprin organized a hospital in his home. Lisa and the girls became sisters of mercy.
Lisa allowed him to arrange a real menagerie in the house. Cats, dogs, monkey, goat, bear. Local kids ran after him around the city, because he bought ice cream for everyone. Beggars lined up outside the town church because he served everyone.

Once the whole city was eating black caviar with spoons. His friend, wrestler I.M.Zaikin sent him a whole barrel of delicacy. But most importantly, Kuprin was finally able to paint at home. He called it the "writing period." When he sat down to write, the whole house froze. Even the dogs stopped barking.

Life in exile

In his home, desecrated and ravaged in 1919, an unknown rural teacher will collect from the floor the priceless manuscript sheets, burnt, covered with dust, smoke and earth, from the floor. Thus, some of the saved manuscripts have survived to this day.
The whole burden of emigration will fall on Lisa's shoulders. Kuprin in everyday life, like all writers, was very helpless. It was during the period of emigration that the writer became very old. Eyesight was getting worse. He saw almost nothing. The uneven and broken handwriting of the Juncker manuscript was a testament to this. After this work, all the manuscripts for Kuprin were written by his wife, Elizaveta Moritsovna Kuprin (1882-1942).
For several years in a row, Kuprin came to one of the Parisian restaurants and at the table wrote messages to an unknown lady. Perhaps the one that was on the negative in the portrait frame of the writer.

Love and death

In May 1937, I. A. Bunin opened a newspaper on the train and read that A. I. Kuprin had returned home. He was shocked not even by the news that he learned, but by the fact that Kuprin had bypassed him in some way. Bunin also wanted to go home. They all wanted to die in Russia. Before his death, Kuprin invited a priest and talked to him about something for a long time. Until his last breath, he held Lisa's hand. So that bruises from her wrist did not go away for a long time.
On the night of August 25, 1938, A.I. Kuprin died.

Left alone, Liza Kuprina hanged herself in besieged Leningrad. Not from hunger, but from loneliness, from the fact that there was no one who she loved with that very love that meets once in a thousand years. With that love that is stronger than death. The ring was removed from her hand, and the inscription was read: “Alexander. August 16, 1909 ". On this day they got married. She never removed this ring from her hand.

The experts gave an unexpected expert opinion. The daguerreotype depicts a young Tatar girl who, many years later, will become the mother of the great Russian writer Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin.