Veresaev Vikentievich Vikentievich. Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich. Vikenty Vikentievich Veresaev

Vikenty Vikentievich Veresaev (real name - Smidovich). Born January 4 (16), 1867, Tula - died June 3, 1945, Moscow. Russian and Soviet writer, translator, literary critic. Laureate of the last Pushkin Prize (1919), Stalin Prize of the first degree (1943).

Father - Vikenty Ignatievich Smidovich (1835-1894), a nobleman, was a doctor, founder of the Tula city hospital and sanitary commission, one of the founders of the Tula Doctors' Society. Mother organized the first kindergarten in Tula in her house.

Vikenty Veresaev's second cousin was Pyotr Smidovich, and Veresaev himself is a distant relative of Natalya Fedorovna Vasilyeva, the mother of Lieutenant General V.E. Vasilyev.

He graduated from the Tula classical gymnasium (1884) and entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, from which he graduated in 1888.

In 1894 he graduated from the medical faculty of the University of Derpt and began medical activity in Tula. Soon he moved to St. Petersburg, where in 1896-1901 he worked as an intern and head of the library in the City Hospital in memory of S. P. Botkin, and in 1903 he settled in Moscow.

Vikenty Veresaev became interested in literature and began to write in his gymnasium years. The beginning of Veresaev's literary activity should be considered the end of 1885, when he places the poem "Meditation" in the Fashion Magazine. For this first publication, Veresaev chose the pseudonym "V. Vikentiev. He chose the pseudonym "Veresaev" in 1892, signing his essays "Underworld"(1892), dedicated to the work and life of Donetsk miners.

The writer developed on the verge of two eras: he began to write when the ideals of populism had collapsed and lost their charming power, and the Marxist worldview began to be stubbornly introduced into life, when bourgeois-urban culture was opposed to noble-peasant culture, when the city was opposed to the countryside, and workers to the peasantry.

In his autobiography, Veresaev writes: “New people have come, cheerful and believing. Rejecting their hopes for the peasantry, they pointed to the rapidly growing and organizing force in the form of the factory worker, and welcomed capitalism, which created the conditions for the development of this new force. Underground work was in full swing, agitation was going on in factories and plants, workshops were held with workers, issues of tactics were vividly debated ... Many who were not convinced by theory were convinced by practice, including me ... In the winter of 1885, the famous Morozov weavers' strike broke out , which struck everyone with its multiplicity, consistency and organization ".

The work of a writer of this time is a transition from the 1880s to the 1900s, from proximity to social optimism to what he later expressed in Untimely Thoughts.

In the years of disappointment and pessimism, he joins the literary circle of legal Marxists (P. B. Struve, M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky, P. P. Maslov, Nevedomsky, Kalmykova and others), enters the literary circle "Sreda" and collaborates in magazines : "New word", "Beginning", "Life".

The story was written in 1894 "No Road". The author gives a picture of the painful and passionate search by the young generation (Natasha) for the meaning and ways of life, turns to the older generation (doctor Chekanov) for the resolution of “damned questions” and waits for a clear, firm answer, and Chekanov throws Natasha words as heavy as stones: “ After all, I have nothing. Why do I need an honest and proud outlook on the world, what does it give me? It has been dead for a long time." Chekanov does not want to admit “that he is lifelessly mute and cold; however, he is not able to deceive himself ”and dies.

During the 1890s, events took place: Marxist circles were created, P. B. Struve’s “Critical Notes on the Economic Development of Russia” appeared, G. V. Plekhanov’s book “On the Development of a Monistic View of History” was published, the well-known strike of weavers broke out in Petersburg, the Marxist New Word comes out, then Nachalo and Zhizn.

In 1897, Veresaev published the story "Fad". Natasha is no longer languishing with “restless quests”, “she has found a way and believes in life”, “she exudes cheerfulness, energy, happiness”. The story sketches a period when the youth in their circles pounced on the study of Marxism and went with the propaganda of the ideas of social democracy to the working masses, to factories and factories.

All-Russian fame came to Veresaev after the publication in 1901 in the journal "The World of God" of the work "Doctor's Notes"- a biographical story about human experiments and a young doctor's encounter with their monstrous reality.

"A doctor - if he is a doctor, and not an official of the medical profession - must first of all fight for the elimination of those conditions that make his activity meaningless and fruitless, he must be a public figure in the broadest sense of the word", the writer notes.

Then in 1903-1927 there were 11 editions. The work, which condemned medical experiments on people, also showed the moral position of the writer, who opposed any experiments on people, including social experiments, no matter who conducted them - bureaucrats or revolutionaries. The resonance was so strong that the emperor himself ordered to take action and stop medical experiments on people.

It is no coincidence that the writer received the Stalin Prize for this work in 1943, at the height of the struggle against the monstrous experiments of the Nazis. But this work received worldwide fame only in 1972. Indeed, over the years, the relevance of Veresaev's position is increasing, if we keep in mind those scientific research and those new technologies that in one way or another affect the health, well-being, dignity, and security of a person. Such research in our time is carried out far beyond the scope of proper medical and biomedical science. In a polemic with opponents, Veresaev showed the wretchedness of supporters of the right of the strong to experiment allegedly "in the interests of the public good" over "useless members of society", "old money-lenders", "idiots" and "backward and socially alien elements."

By the beginning of the century, a struggle was unfolding between revolutionary and legal Marxism, between orthodox and revisionists, between "politicians" and "economists". In December 1900 Iskra began to appear. It turns out "Liberation" - the organ of the liberal opposition. The society is carried away by the individualistic philosophy of F. Nietzsche, part of it is read out by the Kadet-idealist collection "Problems of Idealism".

These processes were reflected in the story "On the Turn", published at the end of 1902. The heroine Varvara Vasilievna does not put up with the slow and spontaneous rise of the working-class movement, this irritates her, although she is aware: "I am nothing if I do not want to recognize this spontaneous and its spontaneity."

Closer to 1905, society and literature were seized by revolutionary romanticism and the song "to the madness of the brave" sounded; Veresaev was not carried away by the "elevating deceit", he was not afraid of the "darkness of low truths." In the name of life, he cherishes the truth and, without any romanticism, draws the paths and paths along which the various strata of society went.

In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, he is called up for military service as a military doctor, and he goes to the fields of distant Manchuria.

The Russo-Japanese War and 1905 are reflected in the notes "In the Japanese War". After the revolution of 1905, a reassessment of values ​​began. Many of the intelligentsia withdrew disappointedly from revolutionary work. Extreme individualism, pessimism, mysticism and churchliness, eroticism colored these years.

In 1908, during the days of the triumph of Sanin and Peredonov, the story "To life". Cherdyntsev, a prominent and active social democrat, at the moment of collapse, having lost the value and meaning of human existence, suffers and seeks consolation in sensual pleasure, but all in vain. Inner confusion passes only in communion with nature and in connection with the workers. The acute question of those years was raised about the relationship between the intelligentsia and the masses, the “I” and humanity in general.

In 1910 he made a trip to Greece, which led to a passion for ancient Greek literature throughout his later life.

During the First World War he served as a military doctor. Post-revolutionary time spent in the Crimea.

During the first years after the revolution of 1917, Veresaev's works were published: “In his youth” (Memoirs); "Pushkin in life"; translations from ancient Greek: "Homeric hymns".

From 1921 he lived in Moscow.

The novel was published in 1922 "At a dead end", which shows the Sartanov family. Ivan Ivanovich, a scientist, a democrat, does not understand anything at all in the unfolding historical drama; his daughter Katya, a Menshevik, does not know what to do. Both are on the same side of the barricade. Another daughter, Vera, and nephew Leonid are communists, they are on the other side. Tragedy, clashes, disputes, helplessness, impasse.

In 1928-1929 he published in 12 volumes a complete collection of his works and translations. Volume 10 includes translations from ancient Greek by Hellenic poets (excluding Homer), including Hesiod's Works and Days and Theogony, which have been repeatedly reprinted.

According to the manner of writing, Veresaev is a realist. What is especially valuable in the writer's work is his deep truthfulness in depicting the environment, persons, as well as love for everyone who rebelliously seeks solutions to "eternal questions" from the position of love and truth. His heroes are given not so much in the process of struggle, work, but in search of ways of life.

Veresaev also writes about workers and peasants. In the story "The End of Andrei Ivanovich", in essay "On the Dead Road" and in a number of other works the writer depicts a worker.

The essay "Lizar" depicts the power of money over the countryside. A few more essays are devoted to the village.

Of great interest is the work on F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy and Nietzsche, entitled "Living Life" (two parts). This is a theoretical justification for the story “To Life” - here the author, together with Tolstoy, preaches: “The life of mankind is not a dark hole from which it will get out in the distant future. This is a bright, sunny road, rising higher and higher to the source of life, light and integral communication with the world! Unity with the whole, connection with the world and people, love - this is the basis of life.

In 1941 he was evacuated to Tbilisi.

He died in Moscow on June 3, 1945, and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery (site No. 2). After 13 years, a monument to the writer was erected in Tula.

Personal life of Vikenty Veresaev:

He was married to his second cousin, Maria Germogenovna Smidovich.

Veresaev described his relationship with his wife in the 1941 story "Eitimiya", which means "joyfulness".

The Veresaevs had no children.

Bibliography of Vikenty Veresaev:

Novels:

Dead End (1923)
Sisters (1933)

Dramas:

In the sacred forest (1918)
The Last Days (1935) in collaboration with M. A. Bulgakov

Tales:

No Road (1894)
Fad (1897)
Two Ends: The End of Andrei Ivanovich (1899), The End of Alexandra Mikhailovna (1903)
At the bend (1901)
On the Japanese War (1906-1907)
To Life (1908)
Isanka (1927)

Stories:

Enigma (1887-1895)
Rush (1889)
To hurry (1897)
Comrades (1892)
Lizar (1899)
Vanka (1900)
On the Bandstand (1900)
Mother (1902)
Star (1903)
Enemies (1905)
Contest (1919)
Dog Smile (1926)
Princess
Non-fictional stories about the past.

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich(1867-1945), real name - Smidovich, Russian prose writer, literary critic, poet-translator. Born on January 4 (16), 1867 in a family of famous Tula ascetics.

Father, doctor V.I. Smidovich, the son of a Polish landowner, a participant in the uprising of 1830–1831, was the founder of the Tula city hospital and the sanitary commission, one of the founders of the Tula Doctors Society, and a member of the City Duma. Mother opened the first kindergarten in Tula in her house.

In 1884, Veresaev graduated from the Tula classical gymnasium with a silver medal and entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, after which he received the title of candidate. The family atmosphere in which the future writer was brought up was imbued with the spirit of Orthodoxy, active service to others. This explains Veresaev's passion for years for the ideas of populism, the works of N.K. Mikhailovsky and D.I. Pisarev.

Influenced by these ideas, Veresaev entered the medical faculty of Derpt University in 1888, considering medical practice to be the best way to know the life of the people, and medicine as a source of knowledge about a person. In 1894, he practiced for several months at home in Tula, and in the same year, as one of the best graduates of the university, he was hired at the St. Petersburg Botkin Hospital.

Veresaev began to write at the age of fourteen (poems and translations). He himself considered the publication of the story Riddle (the magazine World Illustration, 1887, No. 9) to be the beginning of his literary activity.

In 1895, Veresaev was carried away by more radical political views: the writer made close contacts with revolutionary working groups. He worked in Marxist circles, meetings of the Social Democrats were held at his apartment. Participation in political life determined the themes of his work.

Veresaev used artistic prose to express socio-political and ideological views, showing in his novels and short stories a retrospective of the development of his own spiritual quest. In his works, the predominance of such forms of narration as a diary, confession, disputes of heroes on the topics of the socio-political structure is noticeable. The heroes of Veresaev, like the author, were disappointed in the ideals of populism. But the writer tried to show the possibilities of further spiritual development of his characters. So, the hero of the story Bez Road (1895), the zemstvo doctor Troitsky, having lost his former beliefs, looks completely devastated. In contrast to him, the protagonist of the story On the Turn (1902) Tokarev finds a way out of his spiritual impasse and escapes suicide, despite the fact that he did not have definite ideological views and "went into the darkness, not knowing where." Veresaev puts many theses into his mouth, criticizing the idealism, bookishness and dogmatism of populism.

Having come to the conclusion that populism, despite the democratic values ​​it declares, has no basis in real life and often does not know it, in the story Advent (1898) Veresaev creates a new human type: a Marxist revolutionary. However, the writer also sees shortcomings in Marxist teaching: lack of spirituality, blind subordination of people to economic laws.

Veresaev's name was often mentioned in the critical press of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Populist and Marxist leaders used his works as a pretext for public debate on socio-political issues (the magazines Russkoe bogatstvo, 1899, no. 1–2, and Nachalo, 1899, no. 4).

Not limited to the artistic depiction of ideas common among the intelligentsia, Veresaev wrote several stories and stories about the terrible life and the bleak existence of workers and peasants (the stories The End of Andrei Ivanovich, 1899 and Honest Labor, another name is the End of Alexandra Mikhailovna, 1903, which he later revised into story Two ends, 1909, and the stories of Lizar, In a hurry, In a dry fog, all 1899).

At the beginning of the century, society was shocked by Veresaev's Notes of a Doctor (1901), in which the writer depicted a horrifying picture of the state of medical practice in Russia. The release of the Notes caused numerous critical reviews in the press. In response to accusations that it was unethical to bring professional medical problems to public court, the writer was forced to come up with an exculpatory article about the Doctor's Notes. Reply to my Critics (1902).

In 1901 Veresaev was exiled to Tula. The formal reason was his participation in a protest against the suppression of student demonstrations by the authorities. The next two years of his life were filled with numerous trips and meetings with famous Russian writers. In 1902, Veresaev left for Europe (Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland), and in the spring of 1903 - to the Crimea, where he met Chekhov. In August of the same year he visited Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana. After obtaining the right to enter the capital, he moved to Moscow and joined the literary group Sreda. Since that time, his friendship with L. Andreev began.

As a military doctor, Veresaev participated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the events of which he depicted in his usual realistic manner in stories and essays that compiled the collection On the Japanese War (published in full in 1928). He combined the description of the details of army life with reflections on the reasons for the defeat of Russia.

The events of the revolution of 1905-1907 convinced Veresaev that violence and progress are incompatible. The writer became disillusioned with the ideas of the revolutionary reorganization of the world. In 1907-1910, Veresaev turned to the understanding of artistic creativity, which he understood as protecting a person from the horrors of life. At this time, the writer is working on the book Living Life, the first part of which is devoted to the analysis of the life and work of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and the second - Nietzsche. Comparing the ideas of great thinkers, Veresaev sought to show in his literary and philosophical research the moral victory of the forces of good over the forces of evil in creativity and in life.

Since 1912, Veresaev was chairman of the board of the Writers' Book Publishing House organized by him in Moscow. The publishing house united the writers who were members of the "Wednesday" circle. With the outbreak of the First World War, the writer was again mobilized into the army, and from 1914 to 1917 he led the military sanitary detachment of the Moscow Railway.

After the revolutionary events of 1917, Veresaev completely turned to literature, remaining an outside observer of life. The range of his creative aspirations is very wide, literary activity is extremely fruitful. He wrote the novels At the Dead End (1924) and Sisters (1933), his documentary studies of Pushkin in Life (1926), Gogol in Life (1933) and Pushkin's Companions (1937) opened a new genre in Russian literature - a chronicle of characteristics and opinions. Veresaev owns Memoirs (1936) and diary entries for himself (published in 1968), in which the life of the writer appeared in all the richness of thoughts and spiritual quests. Veresaev made numerous translations of ancient Greek literature, including the Iliad (1949) and Odyssey (1953) by Homer.

Vikenty Vikentievich Veresaev (Smidovich)
(1867-1945)

In 1919, Veresaev, a recognized writer and a wise man, created a charming fairy tale "Competition" - about the competition of two artists, the Twice-Crowned Master and his best student Unicorn in painting a picture "depicting the beauty of a woman."

The teacher, in search of the “highest Beauty”, traveled half the world until he found the “luminous Violet Crowned”, and the student wrote his beloved Dawn - “the most ordinary girl, of which dozens can be found everywhere”.

The portrait of Fialkovenchannaya shocked the audience - "no one has ever seen such beauty in the world ... a general sigh of sacred, great longing swept over the crowd." And the portrait of Zorka caused laughter, the artist was almost stoned, but when they looked at the picture, everyone saw that the girl was glowing from the inside - “as if the sun had risen high above the square.”

The light of this sun illuminated the faces of all people and made them beautiful. Everyone understood that beauty is next to him and in himself. And the people called the Unicorn the winner. In this story, the whole Veresaev, who saw the beauty of the earth in the common people, who is the main and only judge for every artist.

The future Russian prose writer, literary critic, poet-translator was born on January 4 (16), 1867 in a large deeply religious family of well-known Tula ascetics Vikenty Ignatievich Smidovich and Elizaveta Pavlovna, nee Yunitskaya. Father - a doctor, the son of a Polish landowner, was the founder of the Tula city hospital and the sanitary commission, one of the founders of the Tula Doctors' Society; mother, a highly educated noblewoman, opened the first kindergarten in Tula in her house, and later an elementary school. Vincent had 10 brothers and sisters (3 of them died in childhood). The boy read N. Gogol, I. Turgenev, M. Lermontov, A.K. Tolstoy, M. Reed, G. Emar; in the summer he helped his mother on the estate, plowed, mowed, carried hay and sheaves; in the gymnasium, which he graduated with a silver medal, he was "the first student", was known as an expert in ancient languages; At the age of 13, he began writing poetry and translating.

For the first time, a poem by a young poet under the name V. Vikentiev - "Thought" was published in the magazine "Fashion Light and Fashion Store" in 1885. After 2 years, the story of the writer "The Riddle" was published in the magazine "World Illustration" under the pseudonym Veresaev, in which he "in an adult way" declared that true happiness is in the struggle, and the meaning of life is in faith in tomorrow.

In 1884, the young man entered St. Petersburg University, at the historical department of the Faculty of History and Philology, after which (1888) he received a candidate's degree. Carried away by the ideas of populism, the works of N. Mikhailovsky and D. Pisarev, Smidovich entered the medical faculty of the University of Dorpat, where he studied science and literary creativity for 6 years. The student correctly believed that medical practice would help him "go to the people", and medicine - to learn about a person. During the cholera epidemic of 1892, he traveled to Yekaterinoslav province, where he was in charge of the barracks at the mine; a few months later he published in the populist magazine “Books of the Week” his essays “Underground Kingdom” - about the work and life of Donetsk miners.

In his senior years, Vikenty worked in the laboratory of a therapeutic clinic, published two scientific articles. After graduating from high school (1894), the doctor practiced in Tula, and then, as one of the best graduates of the university, he was accepted as a supernumerary (without salary) intern at the St. Petersburg Barachnaya (Botkinskaya) hospital for acutely contagious patients. At the same time, Veresaev published in the journal "Russian wealth" a "bright" story about the crisis of the populist worldview "Without a Road", sympathetically met with criticism. The editors of the magazine - N. Mikhailovsky and V. Korolenko invited the novice writer to cooperate. Asking the question - "Truth, truth, where are you? .." - Veresaev found it in the combination of writing and medical work.

In the year of the famous strike of St. Petersburg weavers (1896), Veresaev, having joined the literary circle of Marxists (P. Struve and others), got along with the workers and revolutionary youth, wrote the story "Fad" about a new human type - a Marxist revolutionary.

After a series of stories, essays and short stories, incl. about the terrible life and bleak existence of the working people (“At the turn” - an anti-Nietzschean story, “To Life”, “The End of Andrei Ivanovich”, “To Haste”, etc.) in 1901 the famous “Doctor’s Notes” came out, shocking Russian society and brought world fame to Veresaev, as well as ... exile to Tula under police supervision.

The fact is that the hero of the "Notes" came to the conclusion that only the struggle to eliminate those conditions that "make the young old people who actually shorten the already short human life" can save people. Truthfully and frankly depicting a terrifying picture of the state of medical practice in Russia, the author was forced to justify himself a year later in the article “About the Doctor's Notes”. Reply to my critics.

Veresaev, unlike L. Tolstoy, in his works did not follow the path of generalizing a multitude of disparate facts, but of typifying one particular one, its “documentation”. The attraction to conciseness and reliability over the years has shaped the writer into the ability to create compact texts; “If you want to be great, know how to shrink,” he liked to repeat Pushkin's line.

For two years, Veresaev traveled around the country and Europe (Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland), met with many famous Russian writers (A. Chekhov, L. Tolstoy, etc.), after which he settled in Moscow and entered the literary group "Sreda" , and later to the publishing house of M. Gorky - "Knowledge".

With the beginning of the war with Japan (1904-1906), Veresaev, as a reserve doctor, was called up for military service and ended up as a junior intern in a mobile field hospital in Manchuria. Returning to Moscow, the writer published notes "On the Japanese War" and "Stories about the Japanese War", in which he contrasted the people's power with autocratic power.

In 1907-1910. Veresaev wrote the optimistic story "To Life", the critical and philosophical book "Living Life", the first part of which is devoted to the analysis of the life and work of L. Tolstoy ("Long live the whole world!") And F. Dostoevsky ("The man is damned"), and the second - F. Nietzsche ("Apollo and Dionysus"); made a trip to Greece, where he decided to do translations from ancient Greek.

In 1912, Vikenty Vikentievich participated in the organization of the Book Publishing House of Writers in Moscow; as chairman of the board and editor of this Book Publishing House, he waged war on the decadents.

With the outbreak of the First World War, the writer was mobilized into the army, and from 1914 to 1917 he was a regimental doctor in the city of Kolomna, then led the military sanitary detachment of the Moscow Railway.

Having accepted both revolutions, Veresaev was the chairman of the Artistic and Educational Commission under the Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies. In 1918-1921. lived near Feodosia, in the village of Koktebel. “During this time, the Crimea passed from hand to hand several times,” the writer recalled, “I had to endure a lot of hardship, was robbed six times; a sick Spaniard, with a temperature of 40 degrees, lay for half an hour under the revolver of a drunken Red Army soldier, who was shot two days later; arrested by whites; ill with scurvy." In the Crimea, Veresaev was a member of the board of the Feodosia People's Education Department, and was in charge of the department of literature and art.

In 1921, the writer returned to Moscow, where he worked in the literary subsection of the State Academic Council of the People's Commissariat of Education, edited the art department of the Krasnaya Nov magazine, and was a member of the editorial board of the almanac Our Days. Veresaev was elected chairman of the All-Russian Union of Writers; he gave lectures to young people, wrote journalism; about the events of the Civil War, wrote the novel "At a Dead End" (1924).

In the late 1920s - 1930s. the writer published the novel "Sisters" - about collectivization and the problems of youth, memoirs "In Youth", documentary studies "Pushkin in Life", "Gogol in Life", "Pushkin's Companions", diary "Entries for Myself", journalism, etc. .

For many years Veresaev headed the Pushkin Commission of the Union of Soviet Writers. The last works of Veresaev were "Unfictional stories about the past"; during the Great Patriotic War he published stories and essays.

In 1943, the writer was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree for outstanding achievements in the field of literature. The writer was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

The wife of Vikenty Vikentievich was his second cousin, Maria Germogenovna Smidovich. Veresaev described his relationship with his wife in the 1941 story "Eitimiya", which means "joyfulness". The Veresaevs had no children.

The writer died in Moscow on June 3, 1945, and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery. After 13 years, a monument to the writer was erected in Tula.

Veresaev enjoyed great prestige among readers and critics, writers and authorities. “For the inviolability of his views,” he was called the “Stone Bridge” in his youth, and most of all those around him were impressed by his “writing and human honesty and integrity” of a “high standard”.

He was a very kind and sympathetic person, more than once helping writers who were in trouble (for example, he brought money home to the needy M. Bulgakov).

P.S. A conversation about Veresaev the writer would be incomplete if we did not mention his translations from ancient Greek, which became classics already when they were released: “Homeric Hymns”, “Works and Days” by Hesiod, “Iliad” and “Odyssey” by Homer, lyrics (Archilochus, Sappho and others). To illustrate the virtuoso skill of Veresaev the translator, it is enough to quote a few lines from Sappho:

God equal seems to me fortunately
The person who is so close
Before you sits, your sounding gentle
listens to the voice

And a lovely laugh.

Reviews

What a multi-talented and whole person. Not very deeply familiar with his work, but the name of the writer was well known. He knew that he was the same age and contemporary of Gorky. After reading your miniature, dear Viorel, I learned a lot of interesting things for myself, I will rummage in my rather extensive library or on the Internet
And I will definitely read it, at least selectively. As a native Crimean, it was very interesting for me to know that his life was connected with the Voloshin places of Crimea.
Thanks again and see you next time on your page.
With best wishes, dear Viorel.
Zinovy

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich (1867-1945), real name - Smidovich, Russian prose writer, literary critic, poet-translator. Born on January 4 (16), 1867 in a family of famous Tula ascetics.
Father, doctor V.I. Smidovich, the son of a Polish landowner, a participant in the uprising of 1830–1831, was the founder of the Tula city hospital and the sanitary commission, one of the founders of the Tula Doctors Society, and a member of the City Duma. Mother opened the first kindergarten in Tula in her house.

In 1884, Veresaev graduated from the Tula classical gymnasium with a silver medal and entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, after which he received the title of candidate. The family atmosphere in which the future writer was brought up was imbued with the spirit of Orthodoxy, active service to others. This explains Veresaev's passion for years for the ideas of populism, the works of N.K. Mikhailovsky and D.I. Pisarev.

Influenced by these ideas, Veresaev entered the medical faculty of Derpt University in 1888, considering medical practice to be the best way to know the life of the people, and medicine as a source of knowledge about a person. In 1894, he practiced for several months at home in Tula, and in the same year, as one of the best graduates of the university, he was hired at the St. Petersburg Botkin Hospital.

Veresaev began to write at the age of fourteen (poems and translations). He himself considered the publication of the story Riddle (the magazine World Illustration, 1887, No. 9) to be the beginning of his literary activity.

In 1895, Veresaev was carried away by more radical political views: the writer made close contacts with revolutionary working groups. He worked in Marxist circles, meetings of the Social Democrats were held at his apartment. Participation in political life determined the themes of his work.

Veresaev used artistic prose to express socio-political and ideological views, showing in his novels and short stories a retrospective of the development of his own spiritual quest. In his works, the predominance of such forms of narration as a diary, confession, disputes of heroes on the topics of the socio-political structure is noticeable. The heroes of Veresaev, like the author, were disappointed in the ideals of populism. But the writer tried to show the possibilities of further spiritual development of his characters. So, the hero of the story Bez Road (1895), the zemstvo doctor Troitsky, having lost his former beliefs, looks completely devastated. In contrast to him, the protagonist of the story On the Turn (1902) Tokarev finds a way out of his spiritual impasse and escapes suicide, despite the fact that he did not have definite ideological views and "went into the darkness, not knowing where." Veresaev puts many theses into his mouth, criticizing the idealism, bookishness and dogmatism of populism.

Having come to the conclusion that populism, despite the democratic values ​​it declares, has no basis in real life and often does not know it, in the story Advent (1898) Veresaev creates a new human type: a Marxist revolutionary. However, the writer also sees shortcomings in Marxist teaching: lack of spirituality, blind subordination of people to economic laws.

Veresaev's name was often mentioned in the critical press of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Populist and Marxist leaders used his works as a pretext for public debate on socio-political issues (the magazines Russkoe bogatstvo, 1899, No. 1–2, and Nachalo, 1899, No. 4). , Veresaev wrote several stories and stories about the terrible life and the bleak existence of workers and peasants (the stories The End of Andrei Ivanovich, 1899 and Honest Labor, another name is the End of Alexandra Mikhailovna, 1903, which he later reworked into the story Two Ends, 1909, and the stories of Lizar, In a hurry, In a dry fog, all 1899).

At the beginning of the century, society was shocked by Veresaev's Notes of a Doctor (1901), in which the writer depicted a horrifying picture of the state of medical practice in Russia. The release of the Notes caused numerous critical reviews in the press. In response to accusations that it was unethical to bring professional medical problems to public court, the writer was forced to come up with an exculpatory article about the Doctor's Notes. Reply to my Critics (1902).

In 1901 Veresaev was exiled to Tula. The formal reason was his participation in a protest against the suppression of student demonstrations by the authorities. The next two years of his life were filled with numerous trips and meetings with famous Russian writers. In 1902, Veresaev left for Europe (Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland), and in the spring of 1903 - to the Crimea, where he met Chekhov. In August of the same year he visited Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana. After obtaining the right to enter the capital, he moved to Moscow and joined the literary group Sreda. Since that time, his friendship with L. Andreev began.

As a military doctor, Veresaev participated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the events of which he depicted in his usual realistic manner in stories and essays that compiled the collection On the Japanese War (published in full in 1928). He combined the description of the details of army life with reflections on the reasons for the defeat of Russia.

The events of the revolution of 1905-1907 convinced Veresaev that violence and progress are incompatible. The writer became disillusioned with the ideas of the revolutionary reorganization of the world. In 1907-1910, Veresaev turned to the understanding of artistic creativity, which he understood as protecting a person from the horrors of life. At this time, the writer is working on the book Living Life, the first part of which is devoted to the analysis of the life and work of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and the second - Nietzsche. Comparing the ideas of great thinkers, Veresaev sought to show in his literary and philosophical research the moral victory of the forces of good over the forces of evil in creativity and in life.

Since 1912, Veresaev was chairman of the board of the Writers' Book Publishing House organized by him in Moscow. The publishing house united the writers who were members of the "Wednesday" circle. With the outbreak of the First World War, the writer was again mobilized into the army, and from 1914 to 1917 he led the military sanitary detachment of the Moscow Railway.

After the revolutionary events of 1917, Veresaev completely turned to literature, remaining an outside observer of life. The range of his creative aspirations is very wide, literary activity is extremely fruitful. He wrote the novels At the Dead End (1924) and Sisters (1933), his documentary studies of Pushkin in Life (1926), Gogol in Life (1933) and Pushkin's Companions (1937) opened a new genre in Russian literature - a chronicle of characteristics and opinions. Veresaev owns Memoirs (1936) and diary entries for himself (published in 1968), in which the life of the writer appeared in all the richness of thoughts and spiritual quests. Veresaev made numerous translations of ancient Greek literature, including the Iliad (1949) and Odyssey (1953) by Homer.

Vikenty Vikentyevich Veresaev (pseudonym; real name Smidovich) - Russian writer, literary critic, translator - was born January 4 (16), 1867 in Tula in the family of a doctor who was very popular both as a doctor and as a public figure. There were eight children in this close-knit family. Veresaev studied at the Tula classical gymnasium, teaching was easy, he was "the first student." Most of all he succeeded in ancient languages, read a lot. At the age of thirteen he began to write poetry.

In 1888 Veresaev graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, and in 1894- Faculty of Medicine, Derpt University. In 1894 receives a medical diploma and practices for several months in Tula under the guidance of his father, then goes to St. Petersburg and enters a supernumerary intern at the Barach hospital.

The first publications of V. Veresaev - the poem "Meditation" ( 1885 ), the story "The Riddle" ( 1887 ). Since 1903 V. Veresaev lived in Moscow, was a member of the literary group Sreda. He combined literary activity with medical practice, as a doctor he participated in the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905. In 1917 Veresaev was chairman of the Khudprosvetkommissiya under the Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies. In September 1918 leaves for the Crimea, intending to live there for three months, but is forced to stay in the village of Koktebel, near Feodosia, for three years. In 1921 the writer returned to Moscow.

Personal experience formed the basis of journalistic works in which sharp social criticism is combined with humanistic pathos: "Notes of a doctor" ( 1901 ), "Stories about the war" ( 1913 ), "At war. (Notes)" ( 1907-1908 ), "On the Japanese War" ( 1928) . The main theme of Veresaev's artistic prose, sustained in realistic traditions, is the spiritual quest of the Russian intelligentsia during periods of social upheaval: the story "Without a Road" ( 1895 ), "On the turn" ( 1902 ), the novel "At a dead end" ( 1923-1924 ) and etc.

Veresaev's philosophical views are set forth in the book "Living Life" (1st part - "On Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy", 1910 ; 2nd - “Apollo and Dionysus. (About Nietzsche)", 1914 ), where Veresaev, accepting the artistic experience of Leo Tolstoy and rejecting the world of F.M. Dostoevsky, asserts the "intrinsic value of life" and contrasts its richness with the "dead" truths of the mind. The books “Pushkin in Life” compiled from documentary sources gained wide popularity ( 1925-1926 ), "Gogol in life" ( 1933 ), "Pushkin's Companions" ( 1937 ). Veresaev is the author of memoirs ("Memoirs" ( 1936 ), "Unfictional stories about the past" ( 1941 ), “Records for Myself” (published in 1968 )), translations from ancient Greek poetry (Homer, Sappho, Hesiod, Homeric hymns). In 1943 was awarded the USSR State Prize.

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