The biography of Yuri Trifonov will briefly tell about the life and work of the Russian writer.

Brief biography of Yuri Trifonov

Born on August 28, 1925 in Moscow in the family of a professional revolutionary and children's writer. Parents were repressed when the boy was twelve years old, and at school he became "the son of an enemy of the people" and subsequently could not enter any university. After school, he began to work at a factory as a mechanic, later as editor of a large circulation, as a dispatcher in the shop.

While still at school, he became interested in literature, was the editor of cool newspapers, wrote poetry and stories.

In 1944, he nevertheless entered the Literary Institute, where he studied until 1949.

Some of the first stories, Familiar Places and In the Steppe, appeared in print in 1948. However, fame came to him with the release of the novel "Students" (1950).

Since 1952, he linked his fate with Turkmenistan, and devoted many stories to this particular country. So, in 1959, the cycle of stories "Under the Sun" was published, and in 1963 - the novel "Quenching of Thirst". This work was nominated for the Lenin Prize. After returning from Turkmenistan, Trifonov wrote many stories on a sports theme.

Since 1969, he has published several stories, among them "Exchange", "House on the Embankment", "Another Life" and some others. All of them were unofficially included in the Moscow Stories cycle. The novel “House on the Embankment”, which took place in a government house in the 1930s, brought the greatest popularity to the writer. Many of Trifonov's works were autobiographical. They told about the life of the intelligentsia during the reign of Stalin.

Born in Moscow in the family of a party worker. Trifonov's father began his revolutionary activities during the revolution of 1905. After the October Revolution of 1917, he became one of the organizers of the Red Army. In 1937 he was repressed.

The family history is artistically embodied in many of Trifonov's works, incl. in the documentary novel Flare of the Fire (1965) and in the novel House on the Embankment (1976). In 1942, in evacuation in Tashkent, Trifonov graduated from high school. Upon returning to Moscow, he worked at an aircraft plant. In 1944 he entered the Literary Institute. A.M. Gorky, who graduated in 1949. As a student, in 1947 Trifonov published his first stories. The publication of the novel Students (1950) brought fame to the young prose writer: he was awarded the State Prize and, accordingly, received critical attention. The theme of the novel was determined by its title: Trifonov wrote about what he knew well - about the life of his peers.

After the first success, Trifonov long and hard searched for his theme in prose, developed his own vision of life. He wrote stories of various styles and themes, published the novel Quenching Thirst (1963), which dealt with the construction of an irrigation canal in the desert. A fundamentally new stage in Trifonov's work was the novels of the so-called. The "Moscow cycle", in which the life of the capital's intellectuals was comprehended, was about the preservation of human dignity in the absorbing everyday life.

The first work of the "Moscow cycle" was the story "Exchange" (1969). Its main character, engineer Dmitriev, was tormented by the need to make a decisive moral choice: to stay in a communal apartment or move in with a sick mother, relations with whom Dmitriev had built in such a way that the exchange of living space would become for her clear evidence that her days were numbered. At the end of the story, Dmitriev chose to improve his living conditions, confirming the words of his sister that he had long since exchanged all the best in his soul for the comforts of life. Not divided into "good and bad" and the main characters of the story "Another Life" (1973) - the historian Sergei Troitsky and his wife Olga, whose mutual understanding interferes with mental deafness. Understanding of the husband's inner life, his failed hopes and disappointments (for example, in parapsychology, in which he tried to find a panacea for everyday adversity) comes to Olga only after his death - and comes as a gift, and not as a result of logical comprehension. The title of the story "Preliminary Results" (1970) designated a special type of storytelling. The hero of the story, the translator Gennady Sergeevich, comes to an intermediate moral line, after which his life must radically change. Trifonov was going to make the preliminary results of his life final: the hero had to die. However, as he worked on the story, the writer changed his idea. Gennady Sergeevich survived, in everyday life he became quite well-off, but he lost the ability for inner improvement. Essentially, his life was reduced to maintaining a physical existence. In the same way, the actress Lyalya, the heroine of the story "Long Farewell" (1971), comes out of a difficult mental crisis. Recalling the time when her life was difficult, but mentally intense, she experiences only "a strange instant pain, a contraction of the heart, not that joy, not that regret that all this was with her at one time."

Some critics reproached Trifonov for the "everyday life" of his "Moscow stories". However, life for Trifonov is not a threat to morality, but the sphere of its manifestation. In the preface to a separate edition of the "Moscow stories" critic A. Bocharov wrote: "Leading his heroes through the test of everyday life, the test of everyday life, he reveals the not always perceptible connection of everyday life with the high, ideal, exposes layer after layer of the entire multi-composition of human nature, all the complexity of environmental influences ”. For Trifonov, the historical theme has always been an important one. It manifested itself directly in the novel Impatience (1973) about the People's Will terrorists. In all "Moscow stories" one can also feel the author's view of everyday life from the angle of history. It is most vividly expressed in the novel "The Old Man" (1978), which thematically adjoins the "Moscow cycle". Using the example of the family of the old revolutionary Letunov, in his declining years reflecting on his participation in bloody decossackization and, at the same time, on the life disorder of his children, Trifonov showed the close interweaving of the past and the future. Through the lips of one of the heroes of the novel, he expressed the essence of his attitude to history and everyday life: “Life is such a system where everything is looped in a mysterious way and according to some higher plan, nothing exists separately, in scraps, everything stretches and stretches, intertwining one with to others, without completely disappearing. " The novel repeats the thoughts expressed by the hero of the story Another Life by the historian Troitsky - that "man is a thread" stretching from the past to the future, and along this thread one can study the moral life of society.

The completion of the "Moscow cycle" was the novel "House on the Embankment" (1976). Its publication became an event in literary and social life. By the example of the fate of one of the residents of the famous Moscow house, where the families of party workers lived (including the Trifonov family during his childhood), the writer showed the mechanism of the formation of conformist public consciousness. The story of the successful critic Glebov, who once did not stand up for his teacher-professor, became in the novel the story of the psychological self-justification of betrayal. Unlike the hero, the author refused to justify the betrayal by the cruel historical circumstances of the 1930s – 1940s. The entire creative path of Trifonov, from the early novel "Students" to the posthumously published novel "Time and Place" (1981), is devoted to the search for the embodiment of Time - in plots, characters, style.

Trifonov's way:

1942 - graduates from high school in evacuation in Tashkent.

1947 - begins to print.

1947 - having received the necessary work experience (as a "son of an enemy of the people", after high school, he cannot enter any university, therefore after school he works at an aircraft factory as a mechanic, a shop dispatcher, editor of a factory large-circulation edition), Trifonov enters the Literary Institute. M. Gorky, who graduated in 1949.

1950 - The novel "Students" is published (State Prize of the USSR, 1951), which brought fame to Trifonov.

1952 - goes on a business trip to the Karakum Desert, on the highway of the Main Turkmen Canal. For many years, the literary fate of Y. Trifonov is associated with Turkmenistan.

1955 - rehabilitation of the father.

1959 - A cycle of stories and essays "Under the Sun" appears.

1965 - the documentary novel "The Reflection of the Fire", based on the surviving archives of his father.

In 1966 - 69 he wrote a number of stories - "Vera and Zoya", "In the mushroom autumn", etc.

1969 - The first story from the cycle of "urban" "Exchange" is published, followed by "Preliminary Results" (1970), "Long Farewell" (1971), "Another Life" (1975), "House on the Embankment" (1976).

1970 - Collection of Games at Twilight.

1973 - A novel about the People's Will - "Impatience" was published.

In recent years, the following have been written: the novel "The Old Man" about the fate of the Cossacks during the Civil War (1978), the novel "Disappearance" about the repressions of the 30s. (published in 1987), the novel "Time and Place" (1980), a cycle of travel essays about foreign travel and memories "Overturned House" (1981).

1981 - Yuri Trifonov died in Moscow.

Major works:

Novels:

"Students" (1950; USSR State Prize, 1951)

Quenching Thirst (1963) Historical Novel Impatience (1973)

A documentary-memoir book "Reflection of a campfire" (1965)

Stories:

The Exchange (1969)

"Preliminary Results" (1970)

Long Goodbye (1971)

Another Life (1975)

"House on the Embankment" (1976)

The Old Man (1978)

Time and Place (1981).

Was born Yuri Trifonov in the family of a Bolshevik, a prominent party and military leader Valentin Andreevich Trifonov. Father's brother, Evgeny Andreevich, a hero of the Civil War, published under the pseudonym E. Brazhnev (apparently, from him Yuri Trifonov inherited a gift for writing). Together with the Trifonov family lived grandmother T. A. Slovatinskaya (on the mother’s side of E. A. Lurie), a representative of the "old guard" of the Bolsheviks, endlessly devoted to the cause of Lenin-Stalin and hesitating along with the party line. Both mother and grandmother had a great influence on the upbringing of the future writer.
In 1932, the family moved to the famous Government House, which after more than forty years became known throughout the world as “ House on the embankment"(After the title of Trifonov's story).
In 1937 there were father arrested and uncle of the writer, who were soon shot (uncle - in 1937, father - in 1938). The mother of Yuri Trifonov was also repressed (she was serving a sentence in Karlag). Children (Yuri and his sister) with their grandmother, evicted from the apartment of the government building, wandered and lived in poverty. But my grandmother did not betray her convictions, having lived to a ripe old age, even after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, when the rehabilitation of innocent convicts began.

Yuri Trifonov's literary debut

With the beginning wars Trifonov was evacuated to Tashkent When he returned to Moscow in 1943, he entered a military plant. In 1944, while still working at the plant, he entered the correspondence department Literary Institute, later transferred to full-time. Attended a creative workshop led by eminent writers K. G. Paustovsky and K. A. Fedin, which was reflected later in "Memories of the pangs of silence" (1979).
He began to write very early, almost at the "moth age", continued to write in the evacuation and on his return to Moscow. He sent his poems and little stories to his mother in the camp. They were tied by love, trust and some kind of transcendental intimacy.
Trifonov's diploma work, story " Students”, Written in 1949-1950, unexpectedly brought fame. Was published in the leading literary magazine "Novy Mir" and was awarded the Stalin Prize (1951). The writer himself later treated his first story coldly. And yet, despite the artificiality of the main conflict (an ideologically faithful professor and a cosmopolitan professor), the story carried the rudiments of the main qualities of Trifon's prose - the reliability of life, the comprehension of human psychology through the ordinary. In the 1950s, apparently, it was expected that the successful laureate would continue to exploit this topic, write the novel "Postgraduates", etc.

Yuri Trifonov's approach to history

But Trifonov practically fell silent (in the late 1950s - early 1960s he wrote mainly stories: "Bakko", "Glasses", "Loneliness of Klych Durda", etc.).
In 1963 the novel “ Quenching thirst”, Materials for which he collected in Central Asia at the construction of the Great Turkmen Canal. But the author himself was not completely satisfied with this novel. And again years of silence, except for sports stories and reports. Trifonov was one of the founders of the psychological story about sports and athletes.

The main work of Trifonov in those years was the documentary story " Bonfire gleam”(1965) - a story about his father (the Don Cossack), about the bloody events on the Don. The father for the writer was the embodiment of a man of ideas, completely devoted to the revolution. The romance of that turbulent era, despite all its cruelty, still prevails in the story. A restrained story about real facts is accompanied by lyrical digressions (Trifonov's lyricism is inextricably linked with the image of the passing time, which changes the face of the world). In the action that unfolds either in 1904 (the year my father joined the Bolshevik Party), then in 1917 or 1937, the thickness of time, its multi-layered nature, is exposed.
The post-Stalinist thaw gave way to a new onset of cold weather, and the story miraculously slipped into the crack of the door to the literature of truth, slammed by the censorship. Dead times were coming.

Trifonov turned to history again. Novel " Impatience"(1973) about the People's Will, published in Politizdat in the series" Fiery Revolutionaries ", turned out to be a serious artistic study of social thought in the second half of the 19th century. through the prism of Narodnaya Volya. Allusions became Trifonov's main literary device. Perhaps it was he who, of all the "legal" authors of his time, was under the closest scrutiny of the censorship. But oddly enough, there were few censorship bills in Trifonov's works. The writer was convinced that talent manifests itself in the ability to say everything the author wants to say, and not to be disfigured by the censorship. But this requires the highest mastery of the word, the utmost capacity of thought and boundless trust in the reader. The reader of Trifonov, of course, fully justified this trust: several thousand letters have been preserved in his archive, which testified that in Russia in the 1970s - 1980s. there was a huge layer of people thinking, educated, thinking about the fate of man and the fate of the Motherland.

"Moscow stories" by Yuri Trifonov

Trifonov was born and lived in Moscow all his life. He loved, knew and tried to understand his city. Perhaps that is why the critic called the cycle of his urban stories "Moscow". In 1969, the first story of this cycle appeared “ Exchange", Which also included" Preliminary Results "(1970)," Long Farewell "(1971) and" Another Life "(1975). It became clear that the writer Trifonov had reached a new level.

These stories told about love and family relationships, quite trivial, but at the same time very characteristic, nakedly recognizable. However, the reader recognized not only his life with its universal joys and tragedies, but also keenly felt his time and his place in this time. The focus of Trifonov's artistic searches constantly arose the problem of moral choice, which a person is forced to make even in the most simple everyday situations. During the period of thickening Brezhnev timelessness, the writer was able to show how an intelligent, talented person (the hero of the story "Another Life" historian Sergei Troitsky) is suffocating in this poisonous atmosphere, who does not want to compromise his own decency. Official criticism accused the author of petty topics, the absence of a positive beginning and, in general, that Trifonov's prose is "on the sidelines of life", far from great achievements and the struggle for the ideals of a brighter future.

But Trifonov faced another struggle. He actively opposed the decision of the Secretariat of the Writers' Union to withdraw from the editorial board of Novy Mir, whose long-term author was the writer, its leading collaborators I.I. Vinogradov, A. Kondratovich, V. Ya. Lakshin, knowing full well that, first of all , this is a blow to the editor-in-chief of the magazine A. T. Tvardovsky, to whom Trifonov had the deepest respect and love.
Inhabitants of the House on the Embankment
Being a courageous man, Trifonov stubbornly continued to stand "on the sidelines of life", placing his heroes in the "Procrustean bed of everyday life" (as the articles about his work in the central newspapers were called), stubbornly did not spare "his own people", to which he also referred to himself as an intellectual 1960 -x years

Already in the 1970s, Trifonov's work was highly appreciated by Western critics and publishers. Each new book was quickly translated and published in an impressive, by Western standards, circulation. In 1980, at the suggestion of Heinrich Belle, Trifonov was nominated for the Nobel Prize. The chances were very high, but the death of the writer in March 1981 canceled them out.

In 1976, the magazine Druzhba Narodov published Trifonov's story " House on the embankment", One of the most notable poignant works of the 1970s. The story gave the deepest psychological analysis of the nature of fear, the nature of the degradation of people under the yoke of a totalitarian system. “The times were like that, even if they don't greet at times,” thinks Vadim Glebov, one of the “antiheroes” of the story. Justification by time and circumstances is typical for many Trifonov characters. Trifonov emphasizes that Glebov is driven by motives that are as personal as they bear the stamp of the era: the thirst for power, supremacy, which is associated with the possession of material goods, envy, fear, etc. The author sees the reasons for his betrayal and moral fall not only in fear that his career could be interrupted, but also in fear in which the whole country was immersed, mutilated by Stalin's terror.

Trifonov's comprehension of history and man

Referring to various periods of Russian history, the writer showed the courage of a person and his weakness, his vigilance and blindness, his greatness and baseness, and not only at its breaks, but also in the daily routine. "Because everything consisted of little, of insignificant, of everyday litter, of what descendants cannot see with any vision and imagination."
Trifonov constantly matched different different eras, arranged a “confrontation” for different generations - grandparents and grandchildren, fathers and children, discovering historical echoes, striving to see a person at the most dramatic moments of his life - at the moment of moral choice.

In each of his subsequent works, Trifonov, it would seem, remained within the already artistically mastered range of themes and motives. And at the same time, he perceptibly moved inward, as if “filing” (his word) what had already been found. Oddly enough, Trifonov did not have weak, passable things, he, constantly increasing the power of his recognizable writing, became a true ruler of thoughts.

Fiery lava by Yuri Trifonov

Despite the fact that for three years "House on the Embankment" was not included in any of the book collections, Trifonov continued to "push the limits" (his own expression). He worked on the novel The Old Man, which was conceived for a long time - a novel about the bloody events on the Don in 1918. The Old Man appeared in 1978 in the Druzhba Narodov magazine and appeared thanks to the exceptional acquaintances and cunning of the editor-in-chief of the magazine S. A. Baruzdin.

The protagonist of the novel, Pavel Evgrafovich Letunov, holds an answer to his own conscience. Behind him are "huge years", tragic events, the greatest tension of the revolutionary and post-revolutionary years, a fiery stream of historical lava that swept away everything in its path. The disturbed memory brings Letunov back to what he has experienced. He again resolves the question that has haunted him for many years: was the commander Migulin (the real prototype of F.K.Mironov) really a traitor. Letunov is tormented by a secret feeling of guilt - he once answered a question from an investigator that he allowed Migulin's participation in a counter-revolutionary rebellion and thereby influenced his fate.

The last works of Yuri Trifonov

The deepest, the most confessional novel by Trifonov "Time and Place", in which the history of the country was comprehended through the fate of writers, was rejected by the editors and was not published during his lifetime. He appeared after the death of the writer in 1982 with very significant censorship exemptions. Was rejected by "Novy Mir" and the cycle of stories " Overturned house", In which Trifonov, with undisguised farewell tragedy, told about his life (the story also saw the light of day after the death of its author, in 1982).
Trifonov's prose has acquired a new quality in the last things, greater artistic concentration and, at the same time, stylistic freedom. The writer himself defined "Time and Place" as "a novel of self-awareness." The hero, the writer Antipov, is tested for moral fortitude throughout his life, in which the thread of fate, chosen by him in different epochs, in various difficult life situations, is guessed. The writer strove to bring together the times that he himself witnessed: the end of the 1930s, the war, the post-war period, the thaw, the present.
Self-awareness becomes the dominant feature in the cycle of stories "The Overturned House", Trifonov's focus is on eternal themes (this is the name of one of the stories): love, death, fate. Usually the dryish Trifonov's narrative is lyrically colored here, tending towards poetry, while the author's voice sounds not only openly, but confessionally.

Trifonov's creativity and personality occupy a special place not only in Russian literature of the 20th century, but also in public life. And this place is still unoccupied. Trifonov, helping to comprehend the time flowing through all of us, was a person who made us look back at himself, depriving someone of spiritual comfort, helping someone to live.

Trifonov Yuri Valentinovich
Born: August 28, 1925
Died: March 28, 1981 (55 years old)

Biography

Yuri Valentinovich Trifonov - Russian Soviet writer, master of "urban" prose. He was one of the main figures in the literary process of the 1960s-1970s in the USSR.

Family

Yuri Trifonov's father is a revolutionary, chairman of the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court, Valentin Andreevich Trifonov; was shot on March 15, 1938. Mother - a livestock specialist, then an engineer-economist and children's writer Evgenia Abramovna Lurie (1904-1975; literary pseudonym - E. Tayurina).

In 1937-1938, Yuri Trifonov's parents were repressed. Together with his sister Tinga (married Tatyana Valentinovna Trifonova), the future writer was brought up by his grandmother, Tatyana Alexandrovna Lurie (nee Slovatinskaya, 1879-1957), in his youth - a professional revolutionary, a participant in the Civil War; during the Great Patriotic War, he lived in evacuation in Tashkent with his grandmother and sister. Grandfather - Menshevik underground worker Abram Lurie (1875-1924); his brother, Aron Luria, a publicist, one of the organizers of the Social Democratic "Workers Banner"; cousin - Soviet politician Aron Solts.

The writer's paternal uncle - Evgeny Trifonov (pseudonym - E. Brazhnov; 1885-1937); his son (cousin of Yuri Trifonov) is a defector writer Mikhail Demin (real name - Georgy Evgenievich Trifonov; 1926-1984), author of several poetry collections and autobiographical prose.

Biography. Creation

While still at school, he became interested in literature, was the editor of cool newspapers, wrote poetry and stories. In 1942-1945 he worked at an aircraft plant, first as a mechanic, then as a shop dispatcher. There he joined the Komsomol. In the spring and autumn of 1945, he edited the factory newspaper. In 1944-1949 he studied at the A. M. Gorky Literary Institute. All the years of his studies he attended the seminars of K. A. Fedin, who noticed him, published stories in the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets". In 1948, two stories by the young writer were published - "Familiar Places" (in the magazine "Young Collective Farmer") and "In the Steppe" (in the almanac "Young Guard", No. 2). Yuri Trifonov's diploma work - the story "Students" (1950), written in the style of traditional socialist realism, published in the leading literary magazine of the USSR "New World", awarded the Stalin Prize of the third degree and immediately brought wide popularity to the author - was dedicated to the young post-war generation. However, literally six months after the success of his debut, Trifonov was almost expelled from the institute (more precisely, he was almost expelled from the Komsomol, since he had already graduated from the institute; as a result, he got off with only a reprimand - Yu. V. Trifonov, "Notes of a Neighbor" , 1972) for not indicating in the questionnaire the fact of his father's arrest. Later, the author himself spoke coldly about his first book, although he did not refuse it.

After the success of his debut book, Trifonov began to collect materials for its continuation, but the warm welcome that Alexander Tvardovsky initially gave him in his magazine was replaced by coldness: Tvardovsky advised Trifonov to start writing stories. The second half of the 1950s - early 1960s became a troubled time in the writer's creative biography. In 1959, a series of stories and essays "Under the Sun" was published, and in 1963, after a trip to Turkmenistan, Trifonov published the novel "Quenching Thirst", which was four times revised at the request of the editors. did not become an achievement of the writer. At the same time, Trifonov published numerous stories on sports topics; in 1966-1969 - the stories "Vera and Zoya", "In the mushroom autumn" and others, the story "Reflection of the fire" (1967). In The Reflection of the Fire, Trifonov first touched on a topic that later became one of the main topics in his work: understanding the revolution and its consequences for the country and the people, although the main motive of the book was the justification of the writer's rehabilitated father.

In 1969 the story "Exchange" was published, then "Preliminary Results", "Long Farewell", "Another Life", "House on the Embankment" (1970-1976). Unofficially, they were combined into the Moscow Stories cycle. The action of "Exchange" and "Preliminary Results" takes place in the late 1960s, "Long Goodbye" - in the early 1950s, in "Another Life" and "House on the Embankment" it stretches from the 1930s to the 1970s years. The stories actually presented the reader with a new Trifonov: a wise, sad, keen-sighted person who sees genuine human dramas in everyday life and the little things of life, who knows how to subtly convey the spirit and trends of the times.

But it was the House on the Embankment that brought the greatest fame to the writer - the story described the life and customs of the inhabitants of the government house of the 1930s, many of whom, having moved into comfortable apartments (at that time, almost all Muscovites lived in communal apartments without amenities, often even without toilets, they used a wooden riser in the yard), straight from there they ended up in Stalin's camps and were shot. The writer's family also lived in the same house. But there are discrepancies in the exact dates of residence. "In 1932, the family moved to the famous Government House, which after more than forty years became known to the whole world as 'House on the Embankment' (after the title of Trifonov's story)." In his diary entries, Yuri Trifonov repeatedly mentions his childhood friend Lev Fedotov, who also lived in this famous house.

In 2003, a memorial plaque was installed on the house: “The outstanding writer Yuri Valentinovich Trifonov lived in this house from 1931 to 1939 and wrote the novel“ House on the Embankment ”about it."

Trifonov's prose is often autobiographical. Its main theme is the fate of the intelligentsia during the years of Stalin's rule, comprehension of the consequences of these years for the morality of the nation. Trifonov's stories, almost without saying anything directly, in plain text, nevertheless, with rare accuracy and skill, reflected the world of the Soviet citizen of the late 1960s - mid 1970s.

The writer's books, published in small print runs by the standards of the 1970s (30-50 thousand copies), were in great demand; for magazines with publications of his stories, readers were queuing up in libraries. Many of Trifonov's books were photocopied and distributed in samizdat. Almost every work of Trifonov was subject to close censorship and was hardly allowed for publication.

On the other hand, Trifonov, considered the extreme left flank of Soviet literature, outwardly remained a quite successful officially recognized writer. In his work, he in no way encroached on the foundations of Soviet power. So it would be a mistake to classify Trifonov as a dissidents.

Trifonov's writing style is unhurried, reflective; he often uses retrospective and change of perspective; The writer places the main emphasis on a person with his shortcomings and doubts, refusing any clearly expressed socio-political assessment.

V. Kazak "Lexicon of Russian literature of the XX century"

In 1973 he published a novel about the People's Will "Impatience", in 1978 - the novel "The Old Man". They can be combined into a conventional trilogy, the beginning of which was laid by "The Reflection of the Fire". The "Old Man", whose hero, an old participant in the Civil War, rethinks youth and sums up the results of life, has become one of the most significant works of art in Soviet literature about the first post-revolutionary years. As always with Trifonov, the story in The Old Man is connected with thousands of invisible threads to the present, the narrative unnoticeably and freely “slides” into different time layers.

In 1981, Trifonov completed the complex, multifaceted novel "Time and Place", the structure of which was worked out in detail by the writer back in 1974. This book, one of the most autobiographical among the prose writer, received lukewarm criticism of those years: the author was accused of "insufficient artistry", a repetition of the past. At the same time, "Time and Place" can rightfully be called the final novel of Trifonov, summing up the results of his work, farewell to youth, a sober look in the face of his own illusions and hopes, tough, sometimes even cruel introspection. The novel takes place over four decades - the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1970s.

In 1987, The Disappearance was published posthumously.
Yuri Trifonov died on March 28, 1981 from pulmonary embolism. Buried in Moscow at the Kuntsevo cemetery.

By the time he left his pen in the 1970s, the main works were also associated with the emergence of the "Trifonov school". He took care of the literary youth, in particular, Alexander Prokhanov emphasized his influence on himself.

Personal life

The first wife of Yuri Trifonov (1949-1966) - opera singer (coloratura soprano), soloist of the Bolshoi Theater Nina Nelina (real name - Ninel Alekseevna Nuremberg; 1923-1966), daughter of the famous artist Amshey Nuremberg (1887-1979), niece of the artist David Devinov (real name - David Markovich Nuremberg; 1896-1964). In 1951, a daughter, Olga, was born to Yuri Trifonov and Nina Nelina - married Olga Yuryevna Tangyan, candidate of philological sciences, now living in Dusseldorf.

Second wife (since 1968) - editor of the "Ardent Revolutionaries" series of the Political Literature Publishing House of the Central Committee of the CPSU Alla Pastukhova.

The third wife (since 1975, the actual marriage is the writer Olga Miroshnichenko (born 1938; her first husband is a translator from Estonian Gennady Muravin, the second is the writer Georgy Berezko). Their son is Valentin Yuryevich Trifonov (born 1979).

Bibliography

Collected works in four volumes. - M .: "Fiction", 1985-1987.
Selected works in two volumes. - M .: "Fiction", 1978.
Students. - M .: "SP", 1951; Magadan, 1952; Kursk, 1952; SP and MG, 1953; Omsk, 1954; M., 1956; M., 1960.
Under the sun. Stories. - M .: "Soviet writer", 1959.
At the end of the season. Stories. - M .: "Physical culture and sport", 1961.
Quenching thirst. - M .: "Fiction", 1963; 1964; 1965; 1967; 1970; "Profizdat", 1979.
Bonfires and rain. Stories. - M .: "Soviet Russia", 1964.
Torches on Flaminio. Stories and essays. - M., 1965.
The glow of the fire. A documentary sketch. - M .: "Soviet writer", 1966.
Cap with a large visor. Stories. - M .: "Soviet Russia", 1969.
Twilight games. Stories and essays. - M .: "Physical culture and sport", 1970.
Stories and stories. - M .: "Fiction", 1971.
Long goodbye. Stories and stories. - M .: "Soviet Russia", 1973.
Impatience. - M .: "Politizdat", 1973; 3rd ed. - 1974; 4th ed. "Soviet writer", 1988.
Long lessons. - M .: "Soviet Russia", 1975.
Another life. - M .: "Soviet writer", 1976.
Exchange. Play. - M., 1977.
Stories. - M .: "Soviet Russia", 1978.
Another life. Stories and stories. - M .: "Izvestia", 1979.
Old man. - M .: "Soviet writer", 1979.
Old man. Another life. - M .: "Soviet writer", 1980.
Impatience. Old man. - M .: "Izvestia", 1983.
Another life. The glow of the fire. - M .: "Soviet writer", 1983.
How our word will respond. Journalism. - M .: "Soviet Russia", 1985.
Eternal themes. Novels, stories and short stories. - M .: "Soviet writer", 1985.
Time and place. Novels and story. - M .: "Izvestia", 1988.
Disappearance. Old man. The glow of the fire. - M,: "Moscow worker", 1988.
The glow of the fire. Disappearance. - M .: "Soviet writer", 1988.
Endless games. Film story, stories, essays, articles. - M .: "Physical culture and sport", 1989.
The glow of the fire. Old man. - M .: "Izvestia", 1989.
Disappearance. Time and place. Old man. Novels. - M .: "Contemporary", 1989.

Awards and prizes

Stalin Prize of the third degree (1951) - for the story "Students" (1950)
Order of the Badge of Honor (1975)
medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."

Screen adaptations

1966 - Quenching your thirst (Turkmenfilm; directed by Bulat Mansurov) - novel of the same name

1977 - What the tribunes do not know about (almanac of short film novels: "Alyosha's acquaintance", "Telegram", "Victory is awarded ..."; Film Studio named after M. Gorky; directed by Yakov Bazelyan) - based on the stories

Yuri Trifonov was born on August 28, 1925 in Moscow into the family of a Bolshevik, party and military leader Valentin Andreevich Trifonov.

His father went through exile and hard labor, participated in the armed uprising in Rostov, in the organization of the Red Guard in Petrograd in 1917, in the civil war, in 1918 he saved the gold reserves of the republic and worked in the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court. For the future writer, my father was a real model of a revolutionary and a person. Trifonov's mother, Evgenia Abramovna Lurie, was a livestock specialist, then an engineer-economist. Subsequently, she became a children's writer - Evgenia Tayurina.

Father's brother, Evgeny Andreevich - army commander and hero of the Civil War, was also a writer and published under the pseudonym E. Brazhnev. Together with the Trifonov family lived grandmother TASlovatinskaya, a representative of the "old guard" of the Bolsheviks. Both mother and grandmother had a great influence on the upbringing of the future writer.

In 1932, the Trifonov family moved to the Government House, which after more than forty years became known to the whole world as "The House on the Embankment", thanks to the title of Trifonov's story. In 1937, the writer's father and uncle were arrested, who were soon shot (uncle in 1937, father in 1938). For a twelve-year-old boy, the arrest of his father became a real tragedy, of whose innocence he was sure. Yuri Trifonov's mother was also repressed and was serving a sentence in Karlag. Yuri and his sister and grandmother, evicted from the apartment of the government building, wandered and lived in poverty.

With the outbreak of war, Trifonov was evacuated to Tashkent, and in 1943 he returned to Moscow. "The son of an enemy of the people" could not enter any university, and got a job at a military plant. Having received the necessary work experience, in 1944, while still working at the plant, he entered the Literary Institute. Trifonov told about his admission to the Literary Institute: “Two school notebooks with poems and translations seemed to me such a solid application that there could be no two opinions - they would take me to a poetry seminar. I will become a poet…. In the form of a makeweight, completely optional, I added to my poetic creations a short story, twelve pages long, entitled - unconsciously stolen - “Death of a Hero” ... A month passed, and I came to Tverskoy Boulevard for an answer. The secretary of the correspondence department said: "The poetry is so-so, but the story was liked by the chairman of the admissions committee Fedin ... you can be admitted to the prose department." A strange thing happened: the next minute I forgot about poetry and never wrote from it again in my life! " At Fedin's insistence, Trifonov was later transferred to the full-time department of the institute, from which he graduated in 1949.

In 1949, Trifonov married Nina Alekseevna Nelina, an opera singer and soloist of the Bolshoi Theater. In 1951, a daughter, Olga, was born to Trifonov and Nelina.

Trifonov's diploma work, the story "Students", written by him in the period from 1949 to 1950, brought him fame. It was published in the literary magazine Novy Mir and was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1951. The writer himself later treated his first story coldly. Despite the artificiality of the main conflict (an ideologically faithful professor and a cosmopolitan professor), the story carried the rudiments of the main qualities of Trifon's prose - the authenticity of life, the comprehension of human psychology through the ordinary.

In the spring of 1952, Trifonov went on a business trip to the Karakum Desert, on the highway of the Main Turkmen Canal, and for many years the literary fate of Yuri Trifonov was connected with Turkmenistan. In 1959, a cycle of stories and essays "Under the Sun" appeared, in which for the first time the features of the Trifonov style were indicated. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Trifonov wrote the stories "Bakko", "Glasses", "The Loneliness of Klych Durda" and other stories.

In 1963, the novel "Quenching Thirst" was published, materials for which he collected during the construction of the Turkmen Canal, but the author himself was not satisfied with this novel, and in the following years Trifonov was engaged in writing sports stories and reporting. Trifonov loved sports and, being a passionate fan, enthusiastically wrote about it.

Konstantin Vanshenkin recalled: “Yuri Trifonov lived in the mid-fifties on Verkhnyaya Maslovka, near the Dynamo stadium. I started going there. He added (football jargon) for CDKA for personal reasons, too, because of Bobrov. On the podium he got acquainted with the inveterate "Spartak" players: A. Arbuzov, I. Shtok, then the beginning football statistician K. Yesenin. They convinced him that Spartak was better. Rare case".

For 18 years, the writer was a member of the editorial board of the journal "Physical Culture and Sport", wrote several scripts for documentaries and feature films about sports. Trifonov became one of the Russian founders of the psychological story about sports and athletes.

The rehabilitation of Valentin Trifonov in 1955 made it possible for Yuri to write a documentary story "The Reflection of the Fire" based on the surviving archives of his father. This story about the bloody events on the Don, published in 1965, became the main work of Trifonov in those years.

In 1966, Nina Nelina died suddenly, and in 1968, Alla Pastukhova, editor of the Fiery Revolutionaries series of Politizdat, became Trifonov's second wife.

In 1969 the story "Exchange" appeared, later - in 1970 the story "Preliminary Results" was published, in 1971 - "A Long Farewell", and in 1975 - "Another Life". These stories told about love and family relationships. The focus of Trifonov's artistic searches constantly arose the problem of moral choice, which a person is forced to make even in the most simple everyday situations. During the period of Brezhnev's timelessness, the writer was able to show how an intelligent, talented man (the hero of the story "Another Life" historian Sergei Troitsky) suffocates in this poisonous atmosphere, who does not want to compromise his own decency. Official criticism accused the author of the absence of a positive beginning, of the fact that Trifonov's prose is "on the sidelines of life", far from great achievements and the struggle for the ideals of a "bright future."

Writer Boris Pankin recalled about Yuri Trifonov: “It so happened that after my article“ Not in a circle, in a spiral ”published in the Druzhba Narodov magazine at the end of the 70s, Yuri Valentinovich Trifonov every new thing, big or small in terms of volume, he brought it to me with an autograph, or even in a manuscript, as happened, for example, with the novel "Time and Place". Then these new things were going so thickly with him that one day I could not resist and asked with a feeling of healthy, white, according to Robert Rozhdestvensky, envy, how does he manage to hand out such masterpieces one after another with such iron regularity. He looked at me thoughtfully, chewed on his full black lips - which he always did before maintaining a dialogue - touched his round horn-rimmed glasses, straightened the buttoned collar of his shirt without a tie, and said, starting with the word "here": "Here, you heard, probably a saying: every dog ​​has its own hour to bark. And it passes quickly ... "

In 1973, Trifonov published the novel Impatience about the People's Will, which was published in Politizdat in the Fiery Revolutionaries series. There were few censorship bills in Trifonov's works. The writer was convinced that talent manifests itself in the ability to say everything the author wants to say, and not to be disfigured by the censorship.

Trifonov actively opposed the decision of the Secretariat of the Writers' Union to withdraw from the editorial board of Novy Mir its leading employees II Vinogradov, A. Kondratovich, V. Ya. Lakshin, knowing full well that, first of all, this is a blow to the editor-in-chief of the journal Alexander Tvardovsky, for whom Trifonov had the deepest respect.

In 1975, Trifonov married the writer Olga Miroshnichenko.

In the 1970s, Trifonov's work was highly appreciated by Western critics and publishers. Each new book was quickly translated and published.

In 1976, the magazine Druzhba Narodov published Trifonov's story House on the Embankment, one of the most notable poignant works of the 1970s. In the story, Trifonov made a deep psychological analysis of the nature of fear, the nature and degradation of people under the yoke of a totalitarian system. Justification by time and circumstances is typical for many Trifonov characters. The author saw the reasons for the betrayal and moral decline in the fear in which the whole country was immersed after the Stalinist terror. Referring to different periods of Russian history, the writer showed the courage of a person and his weakness, his greatness and baseness, and not only at breaks, but also in everyday life. Trifonov matched different different eras, arranged a "confrontation" for different generations - grandparents and grandchildren, fathers and children, discovering historical echoes, striving to see a person in the most dramatic moments of his life - at the moment of moral choice.

For three years, "House on the Embankment" was not included in any of the book collections, while Trifonov, meanwhile, was working on the novel "The Old Man" about the bloody events on the Don in 1918. The Old Man appeared in 1978 in the Druzhba Narodov magazine.

The writer Boris Pankin recalled: “Yuri Lyubimov staged“ The Master and Margarita ”and“ House on the Embankment ”at the Taganka almost simultaneously. VAAP, which I was then in charge, immediately ceded the rights to stage these things in the interpretation of Lyubimov to many foreign theatrical agencies. Anyone interested. On the table of Suslov, the second person in the Communist Party, a "memo" immediately lay down, in which the VAAP was accused of promoting ideologically depraved works to the West.

There, - argued at a meeting of the secretariat of the Central Committee, where I was summoned, Mikhalandrev (that was his "underground" nickname), looking at the anonymous letter, - naked women fly around the stage. And this play, like hers, "The House of Government" ...

“House on the embankment,” one of the assistants prompted him carefully.

Yes, "House of Government" - repeated Suslov. - We decided to stir up the old for something.

I tried to reduce the matter to jurisdiction. They say that the Geneva Convention does not provide for the refusal of foreign partners to assign rights to the works of Soviet authors.

They will pay millions in the West for this, ”snapped Suslov,“ but we do not trade in ideology.

A week later, a brigade of the party control committee headed by a certain Petrova, who had previously achieved the expulsion of Lena Karpinsky from the party, raided the VAAP.

I told Yuri Valentinovich about this when we were sitting with him over bowls of scalding piti soup in the “Baku” restaurant, which was on the then Gorky street. “He sees an eye, but a tooth doesn’t,” Trifonov said, either comforting me or asking, chewing his lips according to his custom. And he was right, because Petrov was soon retired "for abuse of power."

In March 1981, Yuri Trifonov was hospitalized. On March 26, he underwent an operation - a kidney was removed. On March 28, in anticipation of a detour, Trifonov shaved, ate and took the Literaturnaya Gazeta for March 25, where an interview with him was published. At that moment, a blood clot came off, and Trifonov instantly died from pulmonary thromboembolism.

Trifonov's confessional novel "Time and Place", in which the history of the country was transmitted through the fates of the writers, was not published during Trifonov's lifetime. It was published after the writer's death in 1982, with significant censorship rejections. The cycle of stories "The Overturned House", in which Trifonov spoke about his life with undisguised farewell tragedy, also saw the light of day after the death of the author, in 1982.

The novel "Time and Place" was defined by the writer himself as "a novel of self-awareness." The hero of the novel, the writer Antipov, is tested for moral resilience throughout his life, in which the thread of fate, chosen by him in different epochs, in various difficult life situations, is guessed. The writer strove to bring together the times he himself witnessed: the end of the 1930s, the war, the post-war period, the thaw, the present.

Trifonov's creativity and personality occupy a special place not only in Russian literature of the 20th century, but also in public life.

In 1980, at the suggestion of Heinrich Belle, Trifonov was nominated for the Nobel Prize. The chances were very high, but the death of the writer in March 1981 canceled them out. Trifonov's novel Disappearance was published posthumously in 1987.

Yuri Trifonov was buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery.

A documentary film "About us with you" was shot about Yuri Trifonov.

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The text was prepared by Andrey Goncharov

Used materials:

- Olga Romanovna, how did you meet Yuri Trifonov?

- Oddly enough, the first meeting took place when I was still in kindergarten, and Trifonov walked by every day to work. I remember it thanks to the black case-tube in which the wall newspaper was. In those days, he was a simple worker, a pipe draper at a military factory, and at the same time edited a wall newspaper. I couldn't know that. And we met at the restaurant of the Central House of Writers. In those years there was a wonderful atmosphere, inexpensive and tasty. Yuri Valentinovich used to visit this restaurant. He was quite famous, Fire Flare was already out. Trifonov looked at me gloomily and viciously. Then he explained that he was annoyed by my good looks.

The romance was dramatic, we converged and dispersed. It was difficult for me to leave my husband, it would be better if we lived with him badly. The feeling of guilt was so heavy that it poisoned the first months of my life with Yuri Valentinovich. A visit to the registry office for the divorce procedure was also difficult for him. I saw this and said: "Okay, God bless him, not yet necessary." But I was pregnant and we got married soon after. He lived in an apartment on Sandy Street, which he loved very much. She seemed very wretched to me, but I understood that he would have to be wiped out of her, like a Japanese samurai. Once a guest from America came to us and remarked: "Losers live in such an apartment."

- Was it difficult to live with a famous writer?

- With him - surprisingly easy. A very tolerant person who does not pretend to someone else's living space. He had an amazing sense of humor, was surprisingly funny, we laughed at times to Homeric fits. And then, he was so trained on the housework: to wash the dishes, and to run to the store for kefirchik. True, I spoiled him pretty quickly - it's not good to drive Trifonov himself to the laundry! Then there was a fashionable word "somewhere", and somehow I began to snatch from his hands the dishes that he was going to wash, and he said: "Stop, somewhere I like it."

- In the diaries and workbooks of Trifonov, which came out with your comments, I read that in the sixties he had to do odd jobs, go into debt.

- Debts were big. Then friends helped. Often the money was lent by playwright Alexei Arbuzov. Life was not easy financially, and at times it was just difficult. “I sometimes reached the ruble, don't be afraid, it's not scary,” he told me once, too, at a difficult moment.

- Was he easy on money?

- I remember his relative, who was going to Spain, came to see us. She said that she would go to work in the vineyards, buy jeans for her son and husband. Yuri followed me into the kitchen and asked: “Olya, do we have currency in our house? Give it back to her. "Everything?" “Everything,” he said firmly. When we were abroad, he always warned: "We must bring gifts to all relatives and friends, the fact that we are here with you is already a gift."

- Yuri Trifonov was already famous when he wrote "House on the Embankment". And it seems to me that this story alone is enough for literary glory. And yet, at that time it was not easy to break through such a book.

- The story of the publication of the story is very difficult. The House on the Embankment was published in the Druzhba Narodov magazine only thanks to the wisdom of the editor-in-chief Sergei Baruzdin. The story was not included in the book, which included both "Exchange" and "Preliminary Results". Markov made sharp criticism at the writers' congress, who then went to Suslov for reinforcements. And Suslov uttered a cryptic phrase: "We all then walked on the edge of a knife," and this meant permission.

- Did you know Vladimir Vysotsky?

- Yes, we met at the Taganka Theater. Trifonov loved Vysotsky, admired him. For him, he was always Vladimir Semyonovich, the only person whom he, who could not tolerate “Brezhnev's” kisses, could hug and kiss when they met. We saw that behind the look of the boy's shirt was a very intelligent and educated person. Once we celebrated the New Year in the same company. One thousand nine hundred and eightieth - the last in the life of Vysotsky. Our neighbors in the country have collected stars. There was Tarkovsky, Vysotsky with Marina Vlady. People who loved each other dearly felt somehow disconnected. Everything is like cotton wool. It seems to me that the reason was too luxurious food - a large grub, unusual for those times. Food humiliated and disconnected. After all, many then simply lived in poverty. Tarkovsky was bored and entertained himself by filming the dog with a Polaroid from strange angles. We sat next to Vladimir Semenovich, I saw a guitar in the corner, I really wanted him to sing. I awkwardly seduced him: "It would be nice to call Vysotsky, he would sing." And suddenly he very seriously and quietly said: "Ol, but here no one but you wants this." It was true.

- Tell me, did Yuri Valentinovich have enemies?

- Rather, envious people. “Wow,” he wondered, “I live in the world, and someone hates me.” He considered vindictiveness to be the worst human quality. There was such a case. The magazine "New World" contained his story "The Overturned House". One of the chapters describes our house, drunken loaders basking in the sun near the Diet store. And when Yuri Valentinovich came to the "Diet" for an order, he was asked to go to the director. “How could you? - Tears rang in the director's voice. - I will be removed from work for this! It turned out that one writer was not too lazy to come to the store and tell that soon the whole country would read about the loaders. After this story, Trifonov refused to go for orders, however, he was always embarrassed to stand in a special line, did not like privileges. Never asked for anything.

- Even when seriously ill ...

“He had kidney cancer, but he didn't die of that. Surgeon Lopatkin performed the operation brilliantly, death occurred as a result of a postoperative complication - embolism. It's a blood clot. At that time, there were already the necessary medicines and filters to catch blood clots, but only in the wrong hospital. There was not even analgin there. I begged to transfer it to another, I wore expensive French perfume, money. They took perfume, repelled envelopes.

- Wasn't it possible to have the operation performed abroad?

- Can. When Yuri Valentinovich was on a business trip to Sicily, he was examined by a doctor. He said that he did not like the tests and offered to go to the clinic. I learned all this later. When I was told the diagnosis in Moscow, I went to the Secretariat of the Writers' Union to get Trifonov's passport. "Where will you get the money for the operation?" - they asked me. I replied that we have friends abroad who are ready to help. In addition, Western publishing houses signed agreements with Trifonov for a future book, without even asking for the title. “There are very good doctors here,” they told me and refused to issue a passport.

They were buried according to the usual litfond category at the Kuntsevo cemetery, which was then deserted. His only order, the Badge of Honor, was carried on the pillow.

Newspapers reported on the date of Yuri Trifonov's funeral after the funeral. The authorities feared unrest. The central house of writers, where the civil funeral service took place, was surrounded by a dense police ring, but crowds came anyway. In the evening, a student called Olga Romanovna and said in a trembling voice: "We, students of Moscow State University, want to say goodbye ..." "We have already buried it."

Interviewed by Elena SVETLOVA