Russian Soviet prose writer and playwright Alexander Vampilov died “on takeoff”, at the age of 35. He dreamed of recognition, but his plays were staged in the capital's theaters only after his death. Having managed to publish two books during his lifetime, Vampilov revolutionized modern Russian drama and theater. Vampilov is called our day. Sad humor, the choice and psychological portrait of “non-heroic” heroes, the attitude towards people of two classics - the 19th and 20th centuries - have something in common.

Childhood and youth

The biography of the talented playwright contains an abundance of tragic pages. Vampilov called the village of Alari in the Irkutsk region his small homeland, although he was born 3 years after his parents moved from Alari to the village of Kutuluk (translated from Buryat as pit), where he spent his childhood and youth. The place of birth was the maternity hospital of the regional center town of Cheremkhovo, adjacent to Kutuluk.

The future of his son, born in August 1937, was predicted by his father Valentin Vampilov. In a letter to his pregnant wife, he expressed confidence that his fourth child would be a boy. He also feared that a difficult fate awaited him as a writer, because shortly before the birth of Sasha Vampilov Sr., visions of classical writers haunted his dreams.

The name of the newborn was also given “on the topic of the day”: in 1937, the country celebrated the 100th anniversary of the death.

Alexander Vampilov did not remember his father: a talented teacher of Russian language and literature, a school director, who before the revolution served as a tutor for the son of the Governor-General of Irkutsk and spoke five languages, was arrested in early 1938 and shot in the spring. The reason for the arrest and sentence of the “troika” of the regional department of the NKVD was the denunciation of Vampilov’s colleague and the subsequent accusation of pan-Mongolism.

There are four children left in the hands of the village school mathematics teacher Anastasia Vampilova-Kopylova. Her mother Alexandra Afrikanovna helped put them on their feet. The woman played the same role in the writer’s life as the nanny Arina Rodionovna played for Pushkin.

As a child, Alexander Vampilov was not much different from his peers: he kicked a ball on the football field, went on hikes with his class, and learned to play the mandolin and guitar. He studied mediocrely, did not like exact sciences, preferring reading to them. This activity took up all the teenager’s free time. In a letter to a friend he admitted:

“I don’t want to study anything other than literature, more than the school curriculum... For example, I’m ready to read without eating for a day!”

Sasha plunged into the world of theater and drama at school: the boy appeared on the stage of the school theater and played in amateur productions. I also started writing at school: I rhymed poetry, edited a wall newspaper.

After graduating from the village school, Vampilov went to Irkutsk. The first attempt to become a student at the Faculty of History and Philology failed: I fell asleep during the entrance exam in German. Alexander worked for a year as an instructor in the string instruments club of the House of Culture and went to enroll again. The second attempt was a success. In 1960, Alexander Vampilov was awarded a diploma of higher education.

Literature

Vampilov became a literary contributor to the regional newspaper during his final year at the university. He worked at Soviet Youth until 1964, rising to the rank of executive secretary. But writing about Komsomol valor and party discipline turned out to be beyond Alexander’s strength: a descendant of Buryat lamas on his father’s side and Orthodox priests, he escaped from the suffocating atmosphere where ideology was at the forefront of all corners. He quit, but willingly collaborated with the editors and went on business trips.

The first swallow - the story “Persian Lilac” - appeared in the Irkutsk University newspaper in 1957. Alexander signed himself with the fictitious surname “Sanin,” hiding behind a pseudonym from, as it seemed to him, inevitable criticism. It did not follow, and a year later a second story appeared in the same newspaper and almanac "Angara", the title of which - "Coincidence of Circumstances" - was given by Vampilov to the collection of stories in 1961.

No one believed in the strength of the young playwright, not even his relatives. Alexander Vampilov’s first plays, including the comedy “Farewell in June,” did not bring fame to the writer. The author's attempts to break through the wall of indifference and interest the capital's theaters ended unsuccessfully.

After Alexander’s death, he admitted that in the 1960s they were “in fashion” and that interest in Shakespeare’s Hamlet was renewed. According to the artistic director of Sovremennik, seeing the genius of the new author was prevented by “the stereotypical structure of our own brains.”

Alexander Vampilov complained to friends that he was “tired of rewriting plays to please boors and officials.” Efremov and Efremov asked the author to remake the text to suit his vision and the repertoire of the theaters he headed. Oleg Nikolaevich even gave advice to “promote” “Farewell in June” as “a play by a national author.” And some chief executives ordered not to allow “this persistent Buryat” into their possessions: Alexander Vampilov overheard the conversation by accident.

The production of a comedy play by Vadim Dopkiunas on the stage of the Klaipeda Drama Theater in 1966 was a breakthrough. Soon, Vampilov’s “Farewell in June” was staged by directors of eight Soviet theaters, but the capital’s still bypassed the “unformatted” author.

In 1967, Alexander Vampilov wrote a comedy in 2 acts, “The Eldest Son,” and completed the play “Duck Hunt,” which he had begun earlier. Amazingly talented, poignant works were appreciated after the author’s death.

10 years later, the play “The Eldest Son” was filmed by Vitaly Melnikov. The psychological drama, in which the main roles were played by and, rightfully took its place in the “golden fund” of Soviet cinema.

In the late 1970s, “Duck Hunt” was filmed: the film was released under the title “Vacation in September,” and the main characters were played by movie stars and a dozen other actors whose names the country knows.

A year before his death, Vampilov gave the world the drama “Red Summer - June, July, August...”, which bore the original title “Valentine”. In the same year, the writer’s one-volume book was published, which included the play “Last Summer in Chulimsk.”

The pendulum of fate began to reverse after the tragic death of the author in 1972. Vampilov's plays were taken into the repertoire by the capital's theaters named after Ermolova and. They are performed on the stage of the Bolshoi Drama Theater in Leningrad.

In 2006, the tragicomedy “The Eldest Son” was filmed by Hollywood, and in 2015, based on “Duck Hunt”, Alexander Proshkin shot the drama “Paradise”. He played Zilova, and Galina. Alexander Vampilov's books have been translated into 20 languages, including English, German, and French.

Personal life

The playwright's first wife was Lyudmila Dobracheva, whom Alexander met at the university. They got married in 1960 and divorced 3 years later. Vampilov met Olga Ivanovskaya and took her to the registry office in the same 1963.

In 1966, Olga gave birth to her husband’s only child, daughter Lena.

The playwright’s personal life can hardly be called happy and cloudless. Vampilov based the hero Zilov from “Duck Hunt” with his painful love triangle and tossing-offs on himself.

Death

The writer died in August 1972. He went on a motor boat with his friend and fellow writer Gleb Pakulov to the village of Listvyanka to do some shopping for his birthday celebration. There was a storm on the Angara, which the friends were crossing: they moored in the nearest village - Nikola.

On the way back, a log hit the side of the boat and capsized it. Pakulov managed to cling to the edge of the boat and was saved, but Vampilov was caught by the current. According to the chief physician of the Listvyanka district hospital, Vitaly Ivanov, who witnessed his death, Alexander Vampilov’s heart could not withstand hypothermia: the water in Lake Baikal is icy even in August.

The place of death is Lake Baikal, at the source of the Angara. Vampilov did not live to see his 35th birthday for two days.

The writer's last refuge was the Radishchevskoe cemetery in Irkutsk. A memorial sign was installed at the place of death on the shore of Lake Baikal in the village of Listvyanka.

Bibliography (plays)

• 1966 - “Farewell in June”
• 1968 - “Eldest Son”
• 1970 - “Duck Hunt”
• 1972 - “Last summer in Chulimsk”
• 1963 - “House with windows in the field”
• 1965 - “One hundred rubles in new money”
• 1965 - “Crow Grove” (“The Story with the Master Page”)
• 1970 - “Provincial jokes”
• 1972 - “The Incomparable Tips”

Filmography

• 1975 - “Last summer in Chulimsk”
• 1976 - “Eldest Son”
• 1979 - “The Story with the Met Page”
• 1979 - “House with windows in the field”
• 1979 - “Vacation in September”
• 1980 - "Endgame"
• 1981 - “The Incomparable Tips”
• 1981 - “Valentine”
• 1989 - “Twenty minutes with an angel”
• 2006 - “Eldest Son”
• 2014 - “Last summer in Chulimsk”
• 2015 - “Paradise”

Quotes

Don't look for scoundrels. Good people do bad things

If you're going to love someone, learn to forgive first.

Tell the truth and you will be original

It's easy to become famous now, you just have to lose your conscience

They count money. Listen: the whole world is busy with this

Everything decent is rash, everything thoughtful is meanness

Memory

• A monument to Alexander Vampilov, Viktor Rozov and Alexander Volodin was erected in the courtyard of the Tabakerka theater in Moscow
• Asteroid (minor planet) No. 3230 is named after Vampilov
• In 1977, the street in the village of Kutulik, where Alexander Vampilov lived, was renamed Vampilov Street
• In 1987, the name of Alexander Vampilov was given to the Irkutsk Theater for Young Spectators. There is a memorial plaque on the theater building
• In Kutulik there is the House-Museum of A.V. Vampilov and the Central Library of the Alar District named after him

• Since 1987, theater festivals have been held in Irkutsk, which were originally called “Vampilov’s Days” and “Baikal Meetings at Vampilov’s.” Since 1997, the festival has been awarded the status of All-Russian
• In 1997, in Irkutsk, on the building of the administrative building of Irkutsk University, where Alexander Vampilov studied, a memorial plaque was installed in his honor
• A motor ship on Lake Baikal and the Irkutsk Regional Foundation bear the name of Alexander Vampilov
• In 2012, a monument to Alexander Vampilov was erected in Cheremkhovo, Irkutsk region.
• In 2012, the Alexander Vampilov Cultural Center was opened in Irkutsk, where you can get acquainted with the collection of the writer’s personal belongings

Alexander Valentinovich was born in the town of Cheremkhovo in the Irkutsk region. His parents were teachers: his father Valentin Nikitich worked as a school director, and his wife Anastasia Prokopyevna worked as a mathematics teacher. Vampilov’s maternal grandfather was a clergyman in a local church. In addition to Sasha, the Vampilovs had three more children.

Some time after the birth of Sasha, Valentin Nikitich was arrested and in 1938, according to the verdict of the Stalinist commission of three people, he was shot by the NKVD of the city of Irkutsk.

In 1960, Alexander Valentinovich married Lyudmila Dobracheva, but after 3 years they would divorce. In the same year, Vampilov married for the second time. After three years of marriage, he and Olga Ivanovskaya had a daughter, Elena.

Character and life path

In 1954, Vampilov tried to become a student at Irkutsk University, but failed. For a whole year he worked as the leader of a string circle at the local House of Culture, after which he was still able to enroll in the 1st year of the Faculty of Philology.

While still in his 5th year, he began working in the regional newspaper “Soviet Youth”, working there until 1964. From a simple employee, he worked his way up to the head of a department and secretary. Even after leaving the newspaper, he continued to go on business trips at the request of the editors.

Friends spoke of him as a very sociable friend and the life of any company. From childhood, he was confident in his literary path in life. He wrote not only for people, but also for relatives. His touching letters are available to anyone who would like to read them.

Friends say he liked to walk “on the cutting edge.” In his works he never used the words “socialism”, “party”, “Lenin” and other ideological terms.

According to a brief biography of Alexander Valentinovich Vampilov, he loved to work independently and not wait for help. Perhaps this trait could also influence early death.

Creation

In total, Vampilov’s creative biography includes 70 literary works. Vampilov wrote his first story when he was a 3rd year student.

In 1962-1963, the young writer created two one-act works for the stage - “Twenty Minutes with an Angel” and “House with Windows on a Field.” In 1964, the first and main serious play appeared from the writer’s pen - “Farewell in June.” Subsequently, Vampilov returned more than once to its edition and addition. The author tried to stage it on the big stage, but Soviet censorship blocked any attempts. By 1970, the play was staged in several Soviet theaters.

In 1965, the play “The Eldest Son”, which later became popular, was published. It will be used to make films of the same name in the USSR (1975) and the USA (2006).

Death

In August 1972, the playwright went for a ride in the northern part of Lake Baikal. By a tragic accident, Vampilov’s motor boat turned upside down and the writer was unable to get out of the water.

At the site of his death, not far from the village of Listvyanka, located on the banks of the Angara River, the authorities installed a memorial plaque with his portrait.
The writer's grave is located in Irkutsk at the Radishchevsky cemetery. Above it there is a tombstone with the autograph of Alexander Valentinovich.

Alexander Valentinovich VAMPILOV

The author of four large plays and three one-act plays (including the student's "House with Windows in the Field"), who died tragically at the age of 35, who did not see any of his plays on the Moscow stage, and during his lifetime published only a small collection of stories (1961) Vampilov (1937 1972) nevertheless made a revolution not only in modern Russian drama, but also in Russian theater, dividing their history into pre- and post-Vampilov. (Leiderman N.)

Internet resources

Russian Literary Network: Vampilov Alexander Valentinovich

Biography and personality of Alexander Vampilov

Wikipedia: Vampilov Alexander Valentinovich

Vladimir Bondarenko. Cheremkhovsky foundling (An unconventional reading of Vampilov)
He was born in the Cheremkhovo maternity hospital on August 19, 1937. He had a close-knit family: dad, Valentin Nikitich, and mom, Anastasia Prokofyevna, three more sisters and brothers. The parents are hereditary teachers, and the father is not just a literature teacher, but the director of a school in Kutulik. Valentin Nikitich knew in advance that his youngest son would be a writer. He named it in honor of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, the centenary of whose death in 1937 the whole country celebrated.
At the maternity hospital, he wrote to his wife: “I’m sure everything will be fine. And, probably, there will be a robber son, and I’m afraid that no matter how much he is a writer, I keep seeing writers in my dreams... I’m afraid that a writer will not be born...”

Gushanskaya E.M. Alexander Vampilov. Essay on creativity. Life path
1944 The boy went to first grade. The youngest son of the school head teacher (Anastasia Prokopyevna was already in charge of the educational department by this time): in old photographs he has a round, cropped, plush head, long thin eyebrows, a gentle mouth, slightly slanted eyes. With his childish facial structure, he resembles the famous portrait of a Taganrog high school student, the son of Pavel Evgrafovich Chekhov, Anton, also chubby and narrow-eyed, but he has a more serious and bitter face, our pioneer has a direct, impatient look, an expression simple-minded, gentle, homely.
As befits the son of a teacher, he studied well, evenly, although without much brilliance. He was great at drawing. We can judge his drawing ability by the cover of “Coincidence of Circumstances,” which the author designed himself.

Zhilkina Tatyana. Born a genius
What I couldn’t stand was falsehood and even the slightest understatement in human relationships. From childhood, there lived in him a lightness, an elusive charm of an artistic nature and at the same time a kind of mysterious restraint that attracted people to him. Including women's hearts...

Rumyantsev A.G. How was the prose writer Alexander Vampilov born? Memories of Vampilov (excerpt)

Fedor Razzakov. Alexander Vampilov
Like all provincials who studied at the Literary Institute, Vampilov lived in a dormitory. He devoted all his free time to two activities: either writing or drinking with his classmates on the dorm roof. In the company he was an irreplaceable person, a real ringleader. His jokes made even the most inveterate wits clutch their stomachs.

Valery Alekseev. Vampilov will always be in demand
Although Sasha said to the poet Nikolai Rubtsov: “Spit that they don’t always publish - me too, I don’t cry...”, he, of course, was worried. I just always switched to self-irony, held on...

Valery Stukov. On a tightrope - to recognition
We called him a tightrope walker, a man tempting fate. Well, why, say, did he once need to “walk” along the railings of the Angarsky Bridge? In order to test himself, Vampilov explained this “strangeness” of his. And how many times did he have to “tempt fate” at the very beginning of his creative career!

Igor Petrov. Dear guitar, ring, ring...
The guitar in Sanya’s hands sensitively followed the content of the poems. The nature of the accompaniment changed with each stanza from a measured alternation of basses with chords to colorful arpeggiated plucking or an elastic march-like rhythm. We were not interested in whose music it was (as it turned out later, some melodies were composed by Vampilov himself), the main thing is that for many of us the lines of the still semi-disgraced poet were a real revelation. A year later, Yesenin’s two-volume book will be published, and we will stand in line for many hours at the “Knowledge” store, opposite the Lenin monument, to become the owners of this still truncated, but precious for us, edition.

Elena Orlova. The first success of Alexander Vampilov. Irkutsk actors remember how it was

Sergey Palchikovsky. In order to become popular, Alexander Vampilov had to drown

Vampilov A. Letters

Fedor Razzakov. How the idols left. Vampilov Alexander

Articles about the work of Alexander Vampilov

Encyclopedia Around the World: Vampilov, Alexander Valentinovich
Vampilov's early works were based on strange, sometimes funny incidents and anecdotes. The heroes of stories and sketches, finding themselves in these strange situations, came to reassess their views. Thus, in the play “Twenty Minutes with an Angel,” the action of which takes place in a provincial hotel, a kind of test of the characters takes place for their ability to be selfless, as a result of which it turns out that only death is selfless in this world. In 1970, Vampilov wrote the play “The Story with the Master Page,” a parable about fear based on the story of hotel administrator Kaloshin’s encounter with his own death. “The Story with the Pageant” together with the play “Twenty Minutes with an Angel” made up a tragicomic performance in 2 parts “Provincial Anecdotes”.

Gushanskaya E.M. Alexander Vampilov. Essay on creativity
The book offers a comprehensive analysis of the work of Alexander Vampilov, reveals the originality of his poetics and ideological and moral quests, and explores the nature of the innovation of Vampilov the playwright. It examines the nature of the relationship between Vampilov’s creativity and the processes of literary, social and artistic life of the sixties and seventies.

Leiderman N. Modern Russian literature - 1950-1990s
Volume 2, 1968–1990, Chapter 7
Alexander Vampilov. Sources of poetics
An entire literary/theatrical generation (L. Petrushevskaya, V. Slavkin, A. Kazantsev, L. Razumovskaya, A. Sokolova, V. Arro, A. Galin) rose on the wave of Vampilov’s success, their plays were called “ post-Vampilov dramaturgy” and indeed their dramatic method directly grows out of the artistic discoveries made by Vampilov.

Elena Sirotkina. Drama of the “Thaw”
The work of Alexander Vampilov is very interesting. His main achievement is a complex polyphony of living human characters, in many ways dialectically continuing each other and at the same time endowed with pronounced individual traits. Already in the first lyrical comedy Farewell in June (1965), the signs of a hero were clearly visible, who then passed through Vampilov’s other plays in different guises.

Lyudmila Ivanova. Alexander Vampilov and Pushkin's literary tradition
Today there are not many names that are directly related to the Russian classical tradition. Vampilov is one of them. And perhaps the most important thing.

Vitaly Kamyshev. The need for Vampilov
...To many today it already seems that we have “passed” Vampilov a long time ago. I am sure: in fact, he has not yet been properly solved, and we more than need his experience of knowing a person.

Motorin, Sergey Nikolaevich. The work of Alexander Vampilov and Russian drama of the 80–90s of the XX century. Abstract of the dissertation
One of the most interesting and mysterious phenomena in Russian literature of the second half of the 20th century is the work of Alexander Vampilov. Despite the fact that fate gave him only thirty-five years of life, and his literary heritage is quite small in volume (several dozen feuilletons, essays and stories, three one-act and five multi-act plays), Vampilov is rightfully considered an outstanding playwright of our time, because far Not every author manages to create something holistic, developing according to its own laws, subject to a special aesthetics, that is, his own “theater”.

Ionova G.V. Lesson-conference on A. Vampilov’s play “The Eldest Son”

Duck hunting
History of creation and publication. Characters. Plot. Criticism about the play. Theater performances. First production. Famous productions. Screen adaptations. Literature.

Mastery in constructing a plot (Based on one of the works of Russian drama of the 20th century - A.V. Vampilov “Duck Hunt”)
In the famous play “Duck Hunt,” Alexander Vampilov used a non-standard plot, which allowed him to create a gallery of characters that puzzled the viewer and reader, causing great public concern.

The nature of the everyday situation in the play by A.V. Vampilov "Duck Hunt"
As in many other plays by Vampilov, life in “Duck Hunt” has a certain semantic and artistic significance. True, against the lush, bright and picturesque background of the rest of Vampilov’s plays, the everyday environment of “Duck Hunt” looks almost sterile, obviously protected from the accidents and surprises of life. Moreover, everyday life in the play looks deadened. It is as if separated by a curtain from the reader.

Review of the play by A.V. Vampilov “Farewell in June”
The gift of a dramatic writer is one of the rarest in the literary craft. The form of drama poses many constraining conditions. It takes a special dramatic ear, similar to music, and a flair not only to translate literary speech into dialogue, but to ensure that it flows in a sparkling, energetic stream. Moreover, it is necessary to be able to bring the hero onto the stage, push him against others and take him away in time so that the actor does not shift idly on the stage - otherwise the audience will get bored. And you never know what else is needed! But the main thing is that the play breathes life - genuine, recognizable.
The wonderful playwright A. Vampilov was awarded all these gifts “by the grace of God.”

Works by Alexander Vampilov

Stories

Letters

Dramaturgy

Gallery

Vampilov Alexander Valentinovich. Gallery
Photos from different years, portrait of Vampilov (incisor engraving) by Oleg Besedin, photos of monuments to the playwright, book covers.

Memories of Alexander Vampilov’s student years are illustrated with photographs of that time

I know I won’t be old... Alexander Vampilov. Documentary. 2009, Russia
The documentary film “I know, I won’t be old... Alexander Vampilov” tells about the tragic fate of Alexander Vampilov.
The film uses unique newsreels, photographs and materials from the personal archives of the widow of the playwright O. Vampilova and his sister G. Guseva.

Alexander Vampilov: Documentary film

A.V. Vampilov. Life and work of the playwright
The 10-minute video contains documentary material that can be used to introduce students to literature classes.

Vampilov Museum
About the A. Vampilov House-Museum in Irkutsk - about the exhibition, donation campaign, preparatory work for the opening. Opening date August 19, 2012

Bibliography

Alexander Valentinovich Vampilov. Essays. Literature.

Irkutsk Regional Fund of A. Vampilov
Works by A. Vampilov
Literature about A. Vampilov

Born on August 19, 1937 in the ancient Siberian village of Kutulik (Irkutsk region, RSFSR, USSR) in the family of a teacher, a bright and extraordinary personality, who tragically died early (he was repressed), leaving four children. His childhood and teenage years were spent in his native home.
After graduating from high school, Vampilov entered the philological faculty of Irkutsk University, where he began to think seriously about literary creativity. In 1958, the story “A Coincidence of Circumstances” was first published in the university newspaper under the pseudonym A. Sanin (later giving the title to his first collection of stories, published in Irkutsk in 1961). After graduating from university, he worked for the Irkutsk newspaper "Soviet Youth" (he was hired as a stenographer) as a correspondent (he wrote essays on instructions from the editors). I published my stories here.
In 1963-1965, Vampilov studied in Moscow at the Higher Literary Courses at the Literary Institute. Gorky. He became close to many Moscow writers and directors (A.T. Tvardovsky and V.S. Rozov and others, O.N. Efremov and G.A. Tovstonogov and others).
After returning to Irkutsk, all his dramatic works were published in the anthologies "Angara" and "Siberia" ("Farewell in June", 1964; "The Eldest Son", 1965; "Duck Hunt", 1968; "Last Summer in Chulimsk", 1971 ; one-act plays “Twenty Minutes with an Angel”, 1962, and “The Story with a Pageant”, 1971, later united under the general title “Provincial Anecdotes”).
All of Vampilov's plays were staged and have not left the stage to this day.

On August 17, 1972, Alexander Vampilov died tragically by drowning in Lake Baikal (a motor boat capsized).
He was buried in Irkutsk at the Radishchevsky cemetery.

Alexander Valentinovich Vampilov was born August 19, 1937. Although often the birthplace of A.V. Vampilov is called the village of Kutulik, in fact he was born in a maternity hospital in the neighboring town of Cheremkhovo, Cheremkhovo district

Father - Valentin Nikitich Vampilov (1898-1938) - Buryat, teacher by training. Shortly after the birth of his son (January 17, 1938), he was arrested and executed on March 9, 1938 by the verdict of the “troika” of the Irkutsk regional department of the NKVD. In February 1957, V.N. Vampilov was posthumously rehabilitated.

Mother - Anastasia Prokopyevna Vampilova-Kopylova (1906-1992), left with 4 children after the death of her husband, continued to work as a mathematics teacher at the Kutulik secondary school. His mother had a decisive influence on the formation of A. Vampilov’s personality.

In 1954, the first attempt to enter ISU failed. For one year, Vampilov worked as an instructor in a string club at the regional House of Culture. From 1955 to 1960 studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of Irkutsk University (together with Valentin Rasputin).

He began his literary career as a prose writer: in 1958, while a student, published 10 humorous stories in Irkutsk newspapers. Subsequently, they compiled the first book of Vampilov’s stories, “Coincidence of Circumstances,” published in Irkutsk under the pseudonym A. Sanin ( 1961 ). Vampilov's early stories are a kind of “small scenes”, the source of many collisions and images of his future plays. The story “Success” was later remade by him into a one-act comedy under the same title.

In October 1959 years, while studying in his fifth year, Vampilov became a literary employee of the regional newspaper “Soviet Youth”. In this newspaper he worked as a literary employee, head of department, and executive secretary. until February 1964. After leaving the editorial office, A. Vampilov did not break ties with the newspaper and more than once went on business trips on assignments from Molodezhka.

In 1960 married ISU student Lyudmila Dobracheva, in 1963 divorced her and in the same year married Olga Ivanovskaya. In 1966 they had a daughter, Elena.

In 1962 at the playwrights' seminar in the village. Maleevka Vampilov presented 2 one-act plays - “One Hundred Rubles in New Money” and “Crow Grove” (later, respectively, “Twenty Minutes with an Angel” and “The Story with a Pageant”). However, an attempt to publish the first of them in the Theater magazine was rejected by the editors. Vampilov's debut as a playwright took place in 1964 in the same magazine “Theater” (No. 11), where his one-act comedy “The House with Windows in the Field” was published under the heading “People's Theater”. In Vampilov's early works, some characteristic features of his creative appearance have already emerged: interest in the world and life of ordinary people from the provincial Russian outback; a slightly ironic, kind and at the same time demanding view of human relationships; the ability to convey in a micro-scene the feeling of the character’s entire past life, etc. A small incident taken from life turns, under Vampilov’s pen, into a real moral test of the hero.

From 1965 to 1967 Vampilov studied at the Higher Literary Courses in Moscow, where he became close to Nikolai Rubtsov, who dedicated one of his poems to him - “I’ll sail away on a ship...”

Autumn 1965 following the results of the Chita seminar of young writers A.V. Vampilov was recommended to the USSR Writers' Union.

Vampilov’s arrival in the “big” dramaturgy is associated with the appearance of his first multi-act play “Farewell in June”, published in 1966 three publications (Angara almanac. No. 1; Theater. No. 8; distribution department of VUOAP). It was first staged in Lithuania (Klaipeda Drama Theatre, 1966 ), then in many provincial theaters of the country. However, the play could only make it to the capital’s stage in 1972(Theater named after K.S. Stanislavsky, directed by A.G. Tovstonogov). Closely associated with youth prose and drama of the 1960s, it was subjected to multiple alterations due to the author’s dissatisfaction with his play and persistent desire to improve it (according to the writer’s wife O.M. Vampilova and his senior colleague in the pen A. Simukov, there are 17 versions of this work). The edition of the play included in Vampilov’s collection “Favorites” (M., 1975 ).

Subsequently, the lyrical-comedy beginning deepened even more in Vampilov’s play “The Elder Son” ( 1968 , original name "Suburb"). Its premiere took place at the Irkutsk Drama Theater. N.P. Okhlopkova ( 1969 , dir. V. Simonovsky), a year later she appeared on the stage of the Leningrad Regional Drama and Comedy Theater (dir. E. Padve). “The Eldest Son” quickly became Vampilov’s most popular work ( in 1972 It was staged by 44 theaters in the country). A TV movie was created based on the play ( 1976 , dir. Vitaly Melnikov), opera ( 1983 , composer Gennady Gladkov).

Vampilov’s new works clearly revealed his affinity for the genre of tragicomedy. In the center of "Duck Hunt" ( 1970 ; published in the anthology “Angara”, No. 6) - the fate of a “unlucky” hero, the internal struggles of a complex, contradictory personality, a merciless revelation of a person’s mental crisis hidden behind an outwardly prosperous existence. This type of hero made the play the subject of discussion in the literary and theatrical press. None of her productions carried out in 1970s and first half of 1980s(including at the Moscow Art Theater, 1979 , dir. HE. Efremov), despite some individual achievements in acting and directing, was not recognized as fully successful, corresponding to the level and spirit of Vampilov’s play. The same can be said about the film “Vacation in September”, created on its basis ( 1979 , dir. Vitaly Melnikov, screen appearance in 1987 ). It is not without reason that it has acquired the reputation of Vampilov’s “most difficult” and mysterious play.

The fate of Vampilov’s last drama, “Last Summer in Chulimsk” ( 1972 ). Like some of his previous plays, it encountered bias and misunderstanding and was removed from the already completed issue of the Siberia almanac. The author never had a chance to see it published.

During his literary work, Alexander Vampilov wrote about 70 stories, sketches, essays, articles and feuilletons.

August 17, 1972, two days before his 35th birthday, A.V. Vampilov died tragically - he drowned in Lake Baikal at the source of the Angara (a motor boat capsized).

An unfinished work remained on his desktop - the vaudeville “The Incomparable Tips”. A memorial sign was erected at the place of death on the shore of Lake Baikal in the village of Listvyanka.

He was buried in Irkutsk at the Radishchevsky cemetery. In 1973 A monument was erected on the grave - a stone with an autograph.

The works of Alexander Vampilov have been translated into English, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Spanish, Chinese, Latvian, Lezgin, Moldavian, Mongolian, German, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, French, Czech, Estonian and other languages.