Granin: unknown biography. Biography of Daniil Granin: personal life and family of the writer On the difference between fascism and communism

Real name:

Daniel German

Daniil Alexandrovich Granin- Russian prose writer, screenwriter and publicist, one of the leading masters of Soviet literature in the 1950s-1980s and during the Perestroika period.

Real name - Daniil Alexandrovich German. He changed his last name to a pseudonym so that he would not be confused with the famous Leningrad writer Yuri German.

Born in Petrograd (according to other sources - in the village of Volyn, Kursk region). He graduated from the electromechanical faculty of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (1940), worked as an engineer in the power laboratory, then in the design bureau of the Kirov plant.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, as part of the people's militia, the factory workers left as a volunteer soldier to defend Leningrad. He passed the way from a private to an officer, was awarded military orders. He ended the war in East Prussia as a heavy tank company commander.

After demobilization, he worked in Lenenergo (head of the regional cable network), restoring the power facilities of Leningrad destroyed during the blockade. Then he worked for a short time at the research institute and studied at the graduate school of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, but did not finish it and left the institute (in 1954), as he completely switched to literary activity.

Published since 1937, but the beginning of his professional literary career Granin considers the publication in the magazine "Zvezda" in 1949 of the story "Option Two".

The main theme of the author- moral problems of scientific and technical creativity, disclosed in the novels "The Searchers" (1954), "Going into a Thunderstorm" (1962), in a series of fictional and documentary works about scientists, in particular, the stories "This Strange Life" (1974, about a biologist AA Lyubishchev), "Zubr" (1987, about the fate of the geneticist NV Timofeev-Resovsky), stories and essays about Academician Kurchatov, other physicists and mathematicians.

Another inescapable theme of Granin's work is the Great Patriotic War. He did not start writing about her right away. In 1968, the story "Our battalion commander" was published, which made a huge impression on readers and caused fierce controversy, because it raised unusual questions about the war. The war looks "not special" in the story "Claudia Vilor" (1976), the novel "My Lieutenant" (2012). An event in the life of the country was the release of the "Blockade Book" (parts 1-2, 1977-81, together with A.M. blockade. Not everything that was written on this topic was published in the Soviet era; later, the Forbidden Chapter from this book was published (1988). Granin persistently discusses the origins of fascism, the fate of the Russian Germans, who suffered the most in world wars, and the lessons of these wars ("Beautiful Uta", 1967; and other books)

In the 1960s and 1980s, Granin traveled extensively, traveled all over Europe (Notes to the Guide, 1967; Church in Auvers, 1969; Alien Diary, 1982), visited Cuba (Island of the Young, 1962) and Australia ("A Month Upside Down", 1966), Japan ("Rock Garden", 1971), America, China. His lyrical travel prose is intellectually rich, free and polemical, and "road plots" occupy the writer much less than the figure of a traveling storyteller. Against the background of diverse exoticism, the narrator turns his gaze to his own life, to his country, unravels the mystery of time - past and present, “consumed and lost”, disappeared in “hot pauses”, tangible and still unknown, which is to be. Granin perceives time, with all the contrasts and paradoxes, as a moral category in the first place.

Related to this is the writer's interest in Russian history, in particular, in Peter I (Evenings with Peter the Great, 2000), as well as in the history of Russian literature. He owns essays about Pushkin ("Two Faces", 1968; "Sacred Gift", 1971; "Father and Daughter", 1982), about Dostoevsky ("Thirteen Steps", 1966), L. Tolstoy ("The Hero He Loved with all the forces of his soul ", 1978) and other classics (collection" Secret Sign of Petersburg ", 2000). The confrontation between talent and mediocrity, repeatedly observed in books about scientists, is transformed here into a conflict between an artist and power, into a single combat between a "genius" and a "villain", into a dispute between Mozart and Salieri. The civic role of art, its great ennobling influence on a person is obvious to Granin. An example of this is the novel "Painting" (1980), which tells about a small Central Russian town, familiar from other works of the writer ("Rain in a strange city", 1974).

The writer collaborated a lot and fruitfully with cinema. Films were staged according to his scripts or with his participation: at Lenfilm - The Seekers (1957, directed by M. Shapiro); After the Wedding (1963, directed by M. Ershov); “I'm Going Into a Thunderstorm” (1965, directed by S. Mikaelyan); The First Visitor (1966, directed by L. Kvinikhidze); at Mosfilm - Choosing a Target (1976, directed by I. Talankin). Television filmed "The Same Surname" (1978), "Rain in a Strange City" (1979), "Evenings with Peter the Great" (2011). However, most of these scripts have not been published.

For a long time Granin, being a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, was energetically engaged in social activities, participated in international meetings and symposia related to science, ecology, and literature. He has published dozens of interviews and publicistic articles (for example, in the collection "On the Painful", 1988). An active public figure in the first years of perestroika. He was one of the initiators of the creation of the Russian Pen-Club. Honorary Citizen of St. Petersburg. In 2016, Daniil Granin won the Dr. Friedrich Josef Haas Prize, which is awarded annually by the German-Russian Forum for “a special contribution to strengthening relations between Russia and Germany”.

Granin has received many awards for his literary activity. In 1976 he received the USSR State Prize for the novel Claudia Vilor; in 1978 he was re-awarded this prize for the script of the film "Rain in a strange city". He is a Hero of Socialist Labor (1989), laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation (for the novel "Evenings with Peter the Great", 2001), the German Grand Cross for merits in the cause of reconciliation. He is a laureate of the Heinrich Heine Prize (FRG), a member of the German Academy of Arts, an honorary doctor of the St. Petersburg University for the Humanities, a laureate of the Alexander Men Prize. In addition, Granin is a holder of two Orders of Lenin, the Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, the Red Star, two Orders of the Patriotic War, II degree, and the Order of Merit to the Fatherland, III degree.

The writer died at the age of 99, on the night of July 5, 2017. The minor planet of the solar system number 3120 is named after Granin.

Fantastic in creativity the author. Granin has few frankly fantastic works. For example, this is a well-known story (recently called a story) "A Place for a Monument", revealing the theme of confrontation between a scientist and a bureaucrat, taking into account the fantastic assumption - if a bureaucrat has information from the future about the importance of a scientific discovery, then what will this change in his attitude to business? Granin's attitude to the problems of time travel is clearly interested, and the hero of another story - "The Broken Trail" - finds himself in the future.

The author is no stranger to alternative historical motives. Characteristic in this respect is "The Tale of a Scientist and an Emperor", which cites episodes from the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, presented with a clearly subjunctive connotation. There are elements of fantasy in the satirical story "Our dear Roman Avdeevich".

But the main thing that I would like to highlight when talking about the fantastic motives in Granin's work are the novels "The Seekers" and "I'm Going into a Thunderstorm." They are traditionally referred to as "realistic" works, although in fact they differ little from the Soviet "production SF close-range" of the 1950s (since the main characters are engaged in the invention of new devices that do not yet exist in reality), but they are written in literary language, which science fiction of that time was completely alien.

© Compilation of A. Ermolaev from numerous sources in print and on the Internet, as well as his own conclusions

Biography note:

The title photo of Granin by Valery Plotnikov.

On the presentation of the new edition of the "Blockade Book": Sergey Glezerov. The transcendental resources of the spirit (St. Petersburg vedomosti, 2013, No. 7 of January 17, p. 3).

In 2003, Russian television released a 4-episode documentary television film "I Remember ... Daniil Granin" (Project author: Bella Kurkova. Director: Lyudmila Gladkova). It is available on the video. The duration of the series is 25 minutes.

1 series: "Confrontation" ... How it all began? Daniil Aleksandrovich recalls the nights in a communal apartment where the first story "Option Two" was written, and the first meeting in the magazine "Zvezda", where Granin brought his work. But the main episode of the film dates back to the 1950s, when during Malenkov's speech, with which the Leningrad affair began, the lights in the Tauride Palace suddenly went out. The Tauride Palace was a special object in the area where Granin was responsible for the supply of electricity ...

Episode 2: "Soviet Atlantis" ... Daniil Granin tells how the German (Granin) family lived in Soviet times, with vivid details. He believes that the literature, unfortunately, to a very small extent reflected all these characteristic features of that time.

Series 3: "Chiefs" ... Daniil Aleksandrovich recalls the II Congress of Writers, at which he was entrusted to bring Olga Dmitrievna Forsh to the Presidium of the Grand Kremlin Palace, who, as the oldest writer, opened the Congress. But due to inexperience, Granin himself remained in the Presidium and took the place where Stalin usually sat ... A unique episode was filmed in Semyonovskoye at Stalin's distant dacha. D. Granin talks about Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev's scattering of Margarita Aliger, Konstantin Simonov and other writers.

Episode 4: "It's a Strange Life" ... These are three stories dedicated to people whom Daniil Granin especially loved and appreciated: Olga Fedorovna Berggolts, Anna Andreevna Akhmatova and Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky.

2019 was declared the Year of Granin in Russia ( Walking into a thunderstorm // SPb Vedomosti, 2018, No. 244 of December 28, p. 3).

(1976), RF State Prize (2001) and RF President Prize. Member of the CPSU (b) since 1942.

Biography

Information from the official biography of Granin was refuted by the literary critic Mikhail Zolotonosov, who discovered that in the archival documents published in the public electronic bank of documents "The feat of the people in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945." it is reported that at the Kirov plant Granin was deputy secretary of the Komsomol committee, he entered the army in 1941 not as a private, but was sent with the rank of senior political instructor, later served as commissar of the 2nd separate repair and restoration battalion (formed on May 2, 1942), information service as a commander of a tank company and awarding the Orders of the Red Banner and the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree are not confirmed.

However, as Zolotonosov clarifies, the award list says that Granin participated in the battles near Pskov in 1941 and was wounded twice. The data on joining the CPSU (b) in the documents studied by the literary scholar differ - the award list indicates 1940, but according to a personal file from the Central State Archive of Civil Engineering of St. Petersburg, he became a candidate for party membership only in 1941 at the Kirov plant.

He was a member of the editorial board of the Roman-Gazeta magazine. He was the initiator of the creation of the Leningrad society "Mercy". President of the Society of Friends of the Russian National Library; Chairman of the Board of the International Charitable Foundation. D.S.Likhacheva. Member of the World Club of Petersburgers.

At the age of 95, he spoke in the German Bundestag in front of the deputies and the chancellor about the blockade of Leningrad and the war.

Creation

Petersburg writer Mikhail Zolotonosov accused Granin of falsifying his biography, distorting facts.

In the novel "My Lieutenant", which takes place in July 1941, the writer repeatedly mentions the order "Not one step back! ", Released in reality in July 1942.

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Notes (edit)

2. M.// St. Petersburg Internet newspaper "Fontanka". - 2014 .-- April 21. The same issue published comments by Daniil Granin, who insisted that he entered the Red Army as a private, but admitted that in August 1942 he served as a commissar in the rear.
3. Zolotonosov M.N. The political instructor suddenly turned out to be // "Gorod 812" magazine. - 2014. - No. 14. - S. 36-39.
4. M.// "812" online. - 2014 .-- April 22.
6. M.// "Literary Russia". - 2010. - No. 22. - May 28.
7. (Russian). Deutsche Welle.27 January 2014. Retrieved January 28, 2014.
8. // Russian newspaper. - 2014 .-- January 27.
13. . OBD "Feat of the People"... Retrieved May 17, 2014.
14. in the electronic bank of documents "Podvig of the People"
17. (unavailable link - history) ... Radio Echo of Moscow, St. Petersburg (October 20, 2008). Retrieved October 25, 2008.
18. ... State Hermitage (2005). Retrieved October 25, 2008.
19. Newspaper "Book Review". - 2013. - No. 25-26.
22. Myagkov, M.
23. Zolotonosov, M.N. // Literary Russia. - 2010 .-- May 28. - No. 22.
24. Kashin, O. // Free Press. - 2014 .-- April 23.
25. Mikhail Zolotonosov.// Literary Russia. - 2014. - No. 38.

Literature

• Cossack V. Lexicon of Russian literature of the XX century = Lexikon der russischen Literatur ab 1917 / [per. with it.]. - M. : RIK "Culture", 1996. - XVIII, 491, p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-8334-0019-8.
• Zolotonosov M.N.// Literary Russia. - 2010 .-- May 28. - No. 22.
• Abridged version of M. Zolotonosov's article in Literary Russia: Zolotonosov M.N.// "812" online. - 2010 .-- June 3.

Links

First Prize Second prize Third Prize For contribution to literature / For honor and dignity * posthumously

An excerpt characterizing Granin, Daniil Alexandrovich

“Yes,” said Prince Andrey, “my father did not want me to exercise this right; I began my service with the lower ranks.
- Your father, a man of the old age, obviously stands above our contemporaries, who so condemn this measure, restoring only natural justice.
“I think, however, that there is a basis in these condemnations as well…” said Prince Andrey, trying to fight against the influence of Speransky, which he was beginning to feel. It was unpleasant for him to agree with him in everything: he wanted to contradict. Prince Andrey, who usually spoke lightly and well, now felt the difficulty of expressing himself when speaking with Speransky. He was too interested in observing the personality of a famous person.
“There may be a basis for personal ambition,” Speransky put in his word quietly.
“Partly for the state,” said Prince Andrew.
"How do you understand? ..." said Speransky, quietly dropping his eyes.
“I am an admirer of Montesquieu,” said Prince Andrew. - And his thought that le rrincipe des monarchies est l "honneur, me parait incontestable. Certains droits еt privileges de la noblesse me paraissent etre des moyens de soutenir ce sentiment. [The basis of monarchies is honor, it seems to me unquestionable. Some rights and the privileges of the nobility seem to me to be the means to maintain this feeling.]
The smile disappeared on Speransky's white face, and his physiognomy benefited a lot from this. Probably Prince Andrew's thought struck him as entertaining.
- Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue, [If you look at the subject like that,] - he began, pronouncing French with obvious difficulty and speaking even more slowly than Russian, but quite calmly. He said that honor, l "honneur, cannot be supported by advantages detrimental to the course of service, that honor, l" honneur, is either: the negative notion of not doing reprehensible acts, or a known source of competition for approval and rewards expressing it.
His arguments were succinct, simple and clear.
The institution that upholds this honor, the source of competition, is an institution like the Legion d "honneur [Order of the Legion of Honor] of the great emperor Napoleon, not harming, but promoting the success of service, not class or court advantage.
- I do not argue, but it cannot be denied that the court advantage has achieved the same goal, - said Prince Andrey: - every courtier considers himself obliged to bear his position with dignity.
“But you didn’t want to take advantage of it, prince,” said Speransky, showing with a smile that he, an awkward argument for his interlocutor, wishes to end it with courtesy. “If you do me the honor of welcoming me on Wednesday,” he added, “after talking with Magnitsky, I will tell you what may interest you, and besides, I will have the pleasure of having a more detailed conversation with you. - He closed his eyes, bowed, and a la francaise, [in the French manner,] without saying goodbye, trying to be unnoticed, left the hall.

During the first time of his stay in St. Petersburg, Prince Andrey felt his entire mentality, developed in his solitary life, completely obscured by those petty concerns that gripped him in St. Petersburg.
Returning home in the evening, he wrote down 4 or 5 necessary visits or rendez vous [dates] in a memorable book at the appointed hours. The mechanism of life, the order of the day such as to keep up with time everywhere, took away a large share of the very energy of life. He did not do anything, did not even think about anything and did not have time to think, but only spoke and successfully said what he had had time to think about in the village before.
He sometimes noticed with displeasure that it happened to him on the same day, in different societies, to repeat the same thing. But he was so busy for whole days that he did not have time to think about the fact that he was not thinking anything.
Speransky, both in the first meeting with him at Kochubei's, and then in the middle of the house, where Speransky, having received Bolkonsky, talked to him for a long time and trustingly, made a strong impression on Prince Andrey.
Prince Andrey considered such a huge number of people to be despicable and insignificant creatures, so he wanted to find in another a living ideal of the perfection to which he strove, that he easily believed that in Speranskoye he had found this ideal of a completely reasonable and virtuous person. If Speransky had been from the same society that Prince Andrey was from, the same upbringing and moral habits, then Bolkonsky would soon have found his weak, human, non-heroic sides, but now this logical mindset, strange for him, inspired him all the more respect that he did not quite understand him. In addition, Speransky, whether because he appreciated the abilities of Prince Andrei, or because he found it necessary to acquire it for himself, Speransky flirted before Prince Andrei with his impartial, calm mind and flattered Prince Andrei with that subtle flattery, combined with arrogance, which consists in tacit recognition his interlocutor with himself is the only person who is able to understand all the stupidity of everyone else, and the rationality and depth of his thoughts.
During their long conversation in the middle of the evening, Speransky said more than once: "We look at everything that goes beyond the general level of an ingrained habit ..." or with a smile: "But we want the wolves to be fed and the sheep safe ..." or : "They cannot understand this ..." and everything with such an expression that said: "We: you and me, we understand what they are and who we are."
This first, long conversation with Speransky only intensified in Prince Andrei the feeling with which he first saw Speransky. He saw in him a reasonable, strictly thinking, enormous mind of a man who, with energy and persistence, had attained power and was using it only for the good of Russia. In the eyes of Prince Andrey, Speransky was precisely that person who rationally explains all the phenomena of life, recognizes only that which is reasonable as valid, and who knows how to apply the standard of rationality to everything, which he himself so wanted to be. Everything seemed so simple, clear in Speransky's presentation that Prince Andrei involuntarily agreed with him in everything. If he objected and argued, it was only because he wanted to be independent on purpose and not completely obey Speransky's opinions. Everything was so, everything was fine, but one thing embarrassed Prince Andrei: it was Speransky's cold, mirrored gaze that did not let into his soul, and his white, gentle hand, which Prince Andrei involuntarily looked at, as people usually look at. with power. For some reason, the mirrored look and this gentle hand irritated Prince Andrew. Prince Andrey was unpleasantly struck by the still too great contempt for people, which he noticed in Speransky, and the variety of methods in the evidence that he cited in support of his opinions. He used all possible instruments of thought, excluding comparisons, and too boldly, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, passed from one to another. Either he stood on the basis of a practical figure and condemned dreamers, then on the basis of a satirist and ironically laughed at his opponents, then he became strictly logical, then suddenly he rose into the field of metaphysics. (He especially often used this last instrument of proof.) He transferred the question to metaphysical heights, passed on to the definitions of space, time, thought, and, bringing forth refutations from there, again descended to the ground of controversy.
In general, the main feature of Speransky's mind, which struck Prince Andrei, was an undoubted, unshakable faith in the strength and legitimacy of the mind. It was evident that Speransky could never have thought of that usual idea for Prince Andrei that it was impossible to express everything that you think, and there never came a doubt that all that I was thinking and all that was nonsense. what do I believe in? And this particular mentality of Speransky most of all attracted Prince Andrei.
At the first time of his acquaintance with Speransky, Prince Andrey had a passionate sense of admiration for him, similar to that which he once experienced for Bonaparte. The fact that Speransky was the son of a priest, who could have been stupid people, as many did, went to despise as a couturier and priest, forced Prince Andrei to treat his feelings for Speransky with particular care, and unconsciously strengthen it in himself.
On that first evening, which Bolkonsky spent with him, talking about the commission for drafting laws, Speransky ironically told Prince Andrei that the commission of laws had existed for 150 years, was worth millions and did nothing, that Rosenkampf pasted labels on all articles of comparative legislation. - And that's all the state paid millions for! - he said.
“We want to give new judicial power to the Senate, but we have no laws. Therefore, it is a sin not to serve people like you, prince now.
Prince Andrey said that this requires a legal education, which he does not have.
- Yes, no one has it, so what do you want? It is the circulus viciosus, [the vicious circle] from which one must come out by effort.

A week later, Prince Andrei was a member of the commission for drawing up military regulations, and, which he never expected, head of the department of the commission for drawing up wagons. At Speransky's request, he took the first part of the civil code being drawn up and, with the help of the Code Napoleon and Justiniani, [the Code of Napoleon and Justinian,] worked on the compilation of the department: Rights of Persons.

Two years ago, in 1808, returning to Petersburg from his trip to the estates, Pierre unwittingly became the head of Petersburg Freemasonry. He set up dining rooms and funeral boxes, recruited new members, took care of the unification of various lodges and the acquisition of authentic acts. He gave his money to set up a temple and replenished, as much as he could, alms, which most of the members were stingy and careless. He almost alone supported the poor house, arranged by the order in St. Petersburg, at his own expense. Meanwhile, his life went on as before, with the same enthusiasm and licentiousness. He loved to dine and drink well, and, although he considered it immoral and humiliating, he could not refrain from the amusements of the bachelor societies in which he participated.
In the wonder of his pursuits and hobbies, Pierre, however, after a year had passed, began to feel that the soil of Freemasonry on which he stood was leaving under his feet the more firmly he tried to stand on it. At the same time, he felt that the deeper the soil on which he stood went under his feet, the more involuntarily he was bound to it. When he started Freemasonry, he felt the feeling of a man trustingly placing his foot on the flat surface of a swamp. Putting his foot down, he fell through. In order to be fully convinced of the firmness of the soil on which he was standing, he put his other foot and fell even more, got stuck and already involuntarily walked knee-deep in the swamp.
Joseph Alekseevich was not in St. Petersburg. (He recently retired from the affairs of the Petersburg lodges and lived without a break in Moscow.) All the brothers, members of the lodges, were people familiar to Pierre in life, and it was difficult for him to see in them only brothers in stone making, and not Prince B., not Ivan Vasilyevich D., whom he knew in life for the most part as weak and insignificant people. From under the Masonic aprons and signs, he saw on them uniforms and crosses, which they sought in life. Often, collecting alms and counting 20-30 rubles registered for the parish, and for the most part in debt from ten members, half of whom were as rich as he was, Pierre recalled the Masonic oath that each brother promises to give his all property for a neighbor; and doubts arose in his soul, on which he tried not to dwell.
He divided all the brothers he knew into four categories. To the first category, he ranked brothers who do not take an active part either in the affairs of the lodges or in human affairs, but are exclusively engaged in the mysteries of science of the order, busy with questions about the triple name of God, or about the three principles of things, sulfur, mercury and salt, or about the meaning square and all the figures of the Temple of Solomon. Pierre respected this category of brothers of the Freemasons, to which mainly the old brothers belonged, and Joseph Alekseevich himself, in Pierre's opinion, but did not share their interests. His heart did not lie to the mystical side of Freemasonry.
Pierre ranked himself and brothers of his own kind in the second category, seeking, hesitating, not yet finding a direct and understandable path in Freemasonry, but hoping to find it.
To the third category, he ranked the brothers (there were the largest number of them) who saw nothing in Freemasonry except the external form and rituals and valued the strict execution of this external form, not caring about its content and meaning. Such were Vilarski and even the great master of the main lodge.
Finally, a large number of brothers were also included in the fourth category, especially those who have recently entered the fraternity. These were people, according to Pierre's observations, who did not believe in anything, did not want anything, and who entered Freemasonry only to get closer to young brothers, rich and strong in connections and nobility, of whom there were very many in the box.
Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with his activities. Freemasonry, at least the Freemasonry that he knew here, seemed to him sometimes, was based on one appearance. He did not even think to doubt Freemasonry itself, but he suspected that Russian Freemasonry had gone down the wrong path and deviated from its source. And therefore, at the end of the year, Pierre went abroad to initiate himself into the highest secrets of the order.

In the summer, back in 1809, Pierre returned to St. Petersburg. From the correspondence of our masons with foreign ones, it was known that Bezukhiy managed to gain the trust of many high-ranking officials abroad, penetrated many secrets, was elevated to the highest degree and carries with him a lot for the common good of the stone business in Russia. Petersburg masons all came to him, currying favor with him, and it seemed to everyone that he was hiding something and preparing something.
A solemn meeting of the 2nd degree lodge was appointed, in which Pierre promised to report what he has to convey to the St. Petersburg brothers from the highest leaders of the order. The meeting was complete. After the usual ceremonies, Pierre got up and began his speech.
“Dear brothers,” he began, blushing and stammering, holding the written speech in his hand. “It is not enough to keep our sacraments in the quiet of the lodge — you need to act ... act. We are in a dormant state, and we need to act. - Pierre took his notebook and began to read.
“In order to spread pure truth and achieve the triumph of virtue, he read, we must cleanse people of prejudices, spread the rules consistent with the spirit of the times, take upon ourselves the upbringing of youth, unite inextricably with the cleverest people, boldly and wisely overcome superstition, unbelief and stupidity, to form from people loyal to us, connected with each other by a unity of purpose and having power and strength.
“In order to achieve this goal, one must give virtue an advantage over vice; one must try to ensure that an honest person still finds in this world an eternal reward for his virtues. But in these great intentions we are hindered by a lot - the current political institutions. What to do in this state of affairs? Should we favor revolutions, overthrow everything, expel force by force? ... No, we are very far from that. Any violent reform is blameworthy because it will not correct evil as long as people remain as they are, and because wisdom has no need for violence.
“The whole plan of the order should be based on the formation of people who are strong, virtuous and united by the unity of conviction, conviction, which consists in pursuing vice and stupidity everywhere and with all our might and patronizing talents and virtue: to extract worthy people from the ashes, joining them to our brotherhood. Then only our order will have the power - insensitively tying the hands of the patrons of disorder and managing them so that they do not notice. In a word, it is necessary to establish a universal sovereign form of government that would spread over the whole world without destroying civil bonds, and under which all other reigns could continue in their usual order and do everything except only that which interferes with the great goal of our order, then is the delivery of the virtue of triumph over vice. This goal was assumed by Christianity itself. It taught people to be wise and kind, and for their own benefit to follow the example and instructions of the best and wisest people.
“Then, when everything was immersed in darkness, of course, one preaching was enough: the news of the truth gave it special strength, but now we need much stronger means. Now it is necessary that a person, governed by his senses, finds sensual delights in virtue. Passions cannot be eradicated; we must only try to direct them to a noble goal, and therefore it is necessary that everyone could satisfy his passions within the bounds of virtue, and that our order should provide means for this.
"As soon as we have a certain number of worthy people in each state, each of them will again form two others, and they will all be closely connected - then everything will be possible for the order, which has already secretly managed to do a lot for the good of mankind."
This speech made not only a strong impression, but also excitement in the box. Most of the brothers, who saw in this speech the dangerous designs of Illuminatiism, with the coldness of Pierre's surprise, accepted his speech. The great master began to object to Pierre. Pierre began to develop his thoughts with great and great ardor. There has not been such a stormy meeting for a long time. The parties were formed: some accused Pierre, condemning him of Illuminatiism; others supported him. Pierre was struck for the first time at this meeting by that infinite variety of human minds, which makes it so that no truth is equally presented to two people. Even those of the members who seemed to be on his side understood him in their own way, with restrictions, changes to which he could not agree, since Pierre's main need was precisely to convey his thought to another just like himself. understood her.
At the end of the meeting, the great master, with hostility and irony, made a remark to Bezukhoy about his fervor and that not only love for virtue, but also a passion for struggle, guided him in the dispute. Pierre did not answer him and asked briefly whether his proposal would be accepted. He was told no, and Pierre, without waiting for the usual formalities, left the box and went home.

The melancholy of which he had so feared again found Pierre. For three days after delivering his speech in the box, he lay at home on the sofa, receiving no one and not leaving anywhere.
At this time, he received a letter from his wife, who begged him for a date, wrote about her sadness for him and about her desire to devote her whole life to him.
At the end of the letter, she informed him that one of these days she would come to Petersburg from abroad.
Following the letter, one of the less respected brothers of the Freemasons burst into Pierre's solitude and, leading the conversation to Pierre's marital relations, in the form of a brotherly council, expressed to him the idea that his strictness towards his wife was unfair, and that Pierre was deviating from the first rules of the Freemason. without forgiving the repentant.
At the same time, his mother-in-law, the wife of Prince Vasily, sent for him, begging him to visit her at least for a few minutes to negotiate a very important matter. Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him, that they wanted to unite him with his wife, and this was not even unpleasant to him in the state in which he was. He did not care: Pierre did not consider anything in life to be a matter of great importance, and under the influence of the melancholy that now possessed him, he did not value either his freedom or his stubbornness in punishing his wife.
"No one is right, no one is to blame, and therefore she is not to blame," he thought. - If Pierre did not immediately express consent to unite with his wife, it was only because in the state of melancholy in which he was, he was not able to undertake anything. If his wife had come to him, he would not have chased her away now. Was it not all the same, in comparison with what occupied Pierre, whether or not to live with his wife?
Without answering anything to either his wife or his mother-in-law, Pierre once got ready for the journey late in the evening and left for Moscow to see Joseph Alekseevich. This is what Pierre wrote in his diary.
“Moscow, November 17th.
Now I just arrived from a benefactor, and I hasten to write down everything that I experienced while doing this. Joseph Alekseevich lives poorly and has been suffering for the third year with a painful bladder disease. No one ever heard a groan from him, or a word of murmur. From morning until late at night, except for the hours at which he eats the simplest food, he works on science. He received me graciously and sat me on the bed on which he was lying; I made him a sign of the knights of the East and Jerusalem, he answered me in the same way, and with a gentle smile asked me what I had learned and acquired in the Prussian and Scottish lodges. I told him everything as best I could, passing on the grounds that I had proposed in our Petersburg box and informed about the bad reception that had been done to me and about the break that had occurred between me and the brothers. Iosif Alekseevich, after a fair silence and thought, expounded to me his view of all this, which instantly illuminated to me all the past and the whole future path that lay before me. He surprised me by asking if I remember what the threefold purpose of the order is: 1) in the preservation and knowledge of the sacrament; 2) in purifying and correcting oneself in order to perceive it, and 3) in correcting the human race through the striving for such purification. What is the main and first goal of these three? Of course, your own correction and purification. It is only for this goal that we can always strive, regardless of all circumstances. But at the same time, this goal also requires the most work from us, and therefore, deluded by pride, we, missing this goal, undertake either the sacrament that we are unworthy to perceive due to our impurity, or we take up the correction of the human race, when we ourselves are an example of abomination and debauchery. Illuminati is not a pure teaching precisely because it is carried away by social activities and is filled with pride. On this basis, Joseph Alekseevich condemned my speech and all my activities. I agreed with him in my heart. On the occasion of our conversation about my family affairs, he told me: - The main duty of a true Mason, as I told you, is to improve oneself. But we often think that by removing from ourselves all the difficulties of our life, we will sooner achieve this goal; on the contrary, my sovereign, he told me, only in the midst of secular unrest can we achieve three main goals: 1) self-knowledge, for a person can know himself only through comparison, 2) improvement, only through struggle is it achieved, and 3) to achieve the main virtue - love of death. Only the vicissitudes of life can show us its vanity and can contribute to our innate love for death or rebirth to a new life. These words are all the more remarkable because Joseph Alekseevich, despite his severe physical suffering, never burdens with life, but loves death, for which he, despite all the purity and height of his inner man, does not yet feel sufficiently ready. Then the benefactor fully explained to me the meaning of the great square of the universe and pointed out that the triple and the seventh are the foundation of everything. He advised me not to distance myself from communicating with the St. Petersburg brothers and, occupying only the position of the 2nd degree in the box, to try, distracting the brothers from the hobbies of pride, to turn them on the true path of self-knowledge and improvement. In addition, for myself personally, he advised me to look after myself first of all, and for this purpose he gave me a notebook, the same one in which I am writing and will continue to write down all my actions ”.

Daniil Granin is a writer whose books are still loved by many fans of literature. And this is no coincidence, because the works of Daniil Alexandrovich describe the life of an ordinary person: his little problems and joys, the search for his own path, the struggle with everyday problems and temptations.

For his work, the writer was awarded the State Prize of the USSR, the Prize of the President of the Russian Federation, in addition, Daniil Granin was a participant in the Great Patriotic War and Hero of Socialist Labor.

Childhood and youth

Daniil Alexandrovich German (this is the real surname of the prose writer) was born on January 1, 1917. Information about the place of birth of the writer varies: according to one information, this is the city of Volsk, which in the Saratov region, according to other sources, Granin was born in the village of Volyn (Kursk region).

The father of the future prose writer, Alexander German, worked as a forester in various private farms. Granin's mother was a housewife. In his own memoirs, Daniil Granin later wrote that mother and father became an example of an ideal loving family. Mother, according to the memoirs of the writer, loved to sing. Granin associated childhood itself with the voice of his mother, her favorite romances.

After a while, the family of little Daniel moved to Leningrad - his father was offered a new job. The boy's mother took this trip with joy - the young woman in the village was bored. Daniel was also happy about the move - the new city captured the boy. However, soon the family happiness was destroyed: Alexander German was exiled to Siberia, his wife had to start working to support herself and her son.

Daniel went to school on Mokhovaya. In his autobiography, Granin fondly recalls this time. The boy especially liked physics and literature. A literature teacher taught children to write poetry. Poetry was not given to Daniil Alexandrovich, and since then Granin got used to treating poetry as the highest art, accessible only to unique people.

When it came time to choose a profession, the family council decided that Daniel would go to study engineering. Before the war, Granin graduated from the Polytechnic Institute, becoming a certified electrical engineer. However, Daniil Alexandrovich did not have to work in his specialty: the Great Patriotic War intervened in the biography of the writer, as in the lives of all citizens of the country.

Daniil Granin at war

The writer went through the war from start to finish. Granin fought on the Baltic and Leningrad fronts, fought in the tank forces and in the infantry, and received several military orders. At the end of the war, Daniil Alexandrovich already had the rank of commander of a tank company. For a long time Granin did not tell anyone about what he had to endure at the front. And he did not dare to write about it right away.

After the war, Granin entered graduate school and got a job at Lenenergo.

Literature

The first samples of Granin's pen were dated to the second half of the 1930s. For the first time, the works of Daniil Alexandrovich were published in 1937 in a magazine called "Rezets". We are talking about the stories "Homeland" and "Return of the Rulyak". The writer himself considered the publication of the story "Option Two" in 1949 as the beginning of his professional literary activity. In the same year, Daniil Alexandrovich began to sign himself with the surname Granin: a well-known novelist and namesake asked the novice writer about this.

Two years later, the writer released two full-fledged novels - "Dispute Across the Ocean" and "Yaroslav Dombrovsky". However, Daniil Granin became famous with the novel "The Seekers", published in 1955. This is a story about the scientist Andrei Lobanov, whose meaning of life has become science. However, the genius of thought has to struggle with bureaucracy and bureaucratic red tape on the way to discoveries and research.

In the future, Daniil Aleksandrovich repeatedly returned to the topic of scientists, graduate students, inventors and the attitude of other people and bosses towards them. This is the subject of the novels and stories "I'm going into a thunderstorm", "Unknown person", "Own opinion", "Someone must". The writer also released several historical works - "Reflections in front of a portrait that does not exist", "The tale of one scientist and one emperor."

Daniil Alexandrovich was also interested in the fate of talented people. The writer conducted research and wrote biographies of the biologist Alexander Lyubishchev (the story "This Strange Life"), the geneticist Nikolai Timofeev-Resovsky (the story "Bison"), and also the physicist (the novel "Choosing a Target"). In the novel "Flight to Russia", published in 1994, Daniil Granin revealed a new side to his readers. The prose writer returned to the favorite theme of the fate of scientists, but revealed it in the form of an adventure detective story.

It is impossible not to mention the military theme in the works of Daniil Alexandrovich. The most striking works, perhaps, were a collection of stories entitled "Still a Trace is Visible" and "The Blockade Book", written by Granin together with Ales Adamovich. This book is devoted to the blockade of Leningrad and is based on documentary sources, notes of the blockade and the memoirs of front-line soldiers.

This is not the only documentary work by Daniil Granin. There are interesting essays, stories and excerpts from the writer's diaries dedicated to travels in Japan, Australia and European countries: "Rock Garden", "Unexpected Morning" and others. In addition, the novelist has written a number of essays and essays on,.

In recent years, Daniil Aleksandrovich preferred to write in the genre of memoirs. Such are the works "My Lieutenant", "The Quirks of My Memory", "It Was Not at All Like This", released in the early 2000s.

In 2013, Granin's "Blockade Book" was republished. The work was supplemented with wartime photographs from the collection of the St. Petersburg Historical Museum and the personal archive of the writer. A year later, Daniil Granin made a speech in the German Bundestag at an event dedicated to the memory of the victims of the National Socialist regime and the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Many listeners could not hold back their tears. The 95-year-old writer received a standing ovation - so emotional was Granin's speech.

Several films have been made based on the works of Daniil Alexandrovich. The novel "The Seekers" was the first to be filmed in 1957. The film was directed by Mikhail Shapiro. Later, the paintings "Choosing a Target", "Rain in a Strange City", "After the Wedding" and others were released.

Personal life

Daniel Granin's personal life was happy. At the beginning of the war, the writer married Rimma Mayorova. In his autobiography, Daniil Alexandrovich wrote that family life began with a few hours spent with his wife in a bomb shelter. A few days later Granin went to the front.

However, the hardships and hardships of wartime did not diminish the feelings of the spouses - Daniil Alexandrovich and Rimma Mikhailovna lived together a whole life. In 1945, the writer had a daughter, Marina.

Death

The last years of his life, the health of Daniil Granin became weaker and weaker: the venerable age of the writer affected. In 2017, Daniil Alexandrovich was completely weakened, he felt bad. In early summer, Granin was hospitalized. He could no longer breathe, so he had to connect a ventilator. On June 4, 2017, Daniil Granin passed away. He was 99 years old.

The death of the writer, although it did not come as a surprise, shocked fans of the prose writer and just caring people. The grave of Daniil Granin is located at the Komarovsky cemetery (near St. Petersburg).

Bibliography

• 1949 - "Dispute Across the Ocean"
• 1949 - "Option two"
• 1951 - "Yaroslav Dombrovsky"
• 1954 - The Searchers
• 1956 - "Own Opinion"
• 1958 - After the Wedding
• 1962 - "I'm going into a thunderstorm"
• 1962 - "An Unexpected Morning"
• 1967 - "House on the Fontanka"
• 1968 - Our battalion commander
• 1968 - "Two Faces"
• 1974 - It's a Strange Life
• 1976 - Claudia Vilor
• 1990 - "Unknown Person"
• 1994 - "Flight to Russia"
• 2000 - Broken Trail

Granin Daniil Alexandrovich (born in 1919) - a pseudonym of a Russian writer, screenwriter and public figure in the field of literature. The real surname of Daniil Alexandrovich is German.

Publications of his works first fell into the hands of readers in the post-war years. In 1989 he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, in 2005 he became an Honorary Citizen of St. Petersburg. In addition, the writer has other awards for services in literature, art and architecture. Member of the Second World War.

Below is a short biography of Daniil Granin.

Family, birth and education of the writer

The village of Volyn, in which the writer was born, was located not far from the site where his father worked as a forester. However, Daniil Aleksandrovich himself indicates another date of birth - 01/01/1919, and the place of birth - Volsk, Saratov region. His mother was from a Tatar clan, and his father was of Polish origin, possibly of Jewish blood. The writer's father was twenty years older than his mother. He remembered her melodious voice and what she sewed on a sewing machine.

After moving to St. Petersburg with his mother, at the age of seven, he entered school. Granin's father was exiled to Siberia. Daniel studied according to the official version at the Leningrad Polytechnic University, after which he worked at the Kirov plant as an engineer. Then the biography of Daniil Granin for some time consisted mainly of military service - he was drafted to war as a member of the people's militia. He was sent to a tank school in Ulyanovsk. According to Zolotonosov's information, published on the Internet under the title “The feat of the people in the Second World War. 1941-1945 ", Daniil Granin worked as a deputy. secretary of the Komsomol, and at the front served as a commissar.

According to the memoirs of the author himself, while studying at the institute, he suddenly began work on a historical work about Dombrowski, in which he expressed his attitude to the uprising in Poland in 1863, and the life of the French in the commune. During the period of participation in hostilities at the Pulkovo Heights, he did not describe the war, since he believed that the war does not teach anything good - there is too much blood and cruelty.

Work and creativity in the biography of Daniil Granin

During his stay on duty in Ulyanovsk, he meets the citizen Mayorova, and later marries her. In the year the war ends, Marina is born in their family. Upon returning to Leningrad, Granin is working to restore the city's power lines, destroyed during the blockade. While working for Lenenergo, the writer began his writing career with a collection of short stories "Dispute Across the Ocean", published in 1949. In the same period, Granin's story "Option Two" was published, published in "Zvezda" not without the support of Yu. German, who had no family ties with Daniil Alexandrovich. But the author adopted the pseudonym Granin to avoid misinterpreting his relationship with the head of the press department.

After 1950 he became a professional writer, expert in the field of literature. He published the story about J. Dombrowski, begun in the pre-war years. The work "The Victory of the Engineer Korsakov" told about the victory in scientific research of a Soviet scientist in a discussion with a representative of the US scientific community. The work was not liked by the leadership of the USSR, since the United States was not represented gloomily enough. Further creative biography of Daniil Granin developed in the field of scientific research. He enters graduate school, studies the movement of electric arcs. In his works, Daniil Granin deeply touches on the topic of scientific and technological progress and the realities of everyday life. His work finds a response in the hearts of the learned world of the USSR, which have always been the target of the leadership, officials, short-sighted and hungry for profit. Granin reveals the topic of obstacles to the advancement of science on the part of statesmen.

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