To the birthday of Alexander Grin

Me " teasing the earth Green wrote. - Its oceans are vast, the islands are countless, and the mass of mysterious, deadly curious corners..

Fairy tales are needed not only for children, but also for adults. It causes excitement - the source of high human passions. She does not allow us to calm down, showing new sparkling distances, another life that disturbs us, the desire for this life. This is its value, and this is the value of the sometimes inexpressible in words, but the clear and powerful charm of Green's stories.

Alexander Green said that "the whole earth, with everything that is on it, is given to us for life, for the recognition of this life wherever it is." Alexander Grin himself lived a hard life. Everything in her, as if on purpose, developed in such a way as to make him a criminal or an evil layman. But this gloomy man carried through all the hardships of life, without tarnishing, the gift of a powerful imagination, purity of feelings and a shy smile. The environment was terrible, life unbearable. Alexander Grin survived, but distrust remained for life. He always tried to get away from her, believing that it is better to live in elusive dreams than "the rubbish and garbage of every day."

AlexanderGrinevsky(Green) was born August 23, 1880.His father, a participant in the Polish uprising of 1863, was exiled to Vyatka, worked as an accountant and died in poverty.Alexander was dreamy, impatient and distracted. He was fond of many things, but did not bring anything to the end. He studied poorly, avidly read Mine Reed and Jules Verne, Gustave Aimard and Jacollio.

From the age of eight, Alexander began to think hard about travel. He retained his thirst for travel until his death. Every journey, no matter how insignificant, caused him deep excitement.

From an early age, Green was tired of a bleak existence. At home, the boy was constantly beaten, his sick, exhausted motherdefendedhisfrom a drunken father.

With great difficulty, Alexander Green was sent to a real school. But soon he was expelled for innocent poetry about a class teacher. The father, having severely beaten his son, humiliated himself, asked,but,could not restore his son to the school. I had to send him to the city school. Mother died. Green's father soon married the psalmist's widow. They had a child.

Life went on as before without any events, in the cramped quarters of a miserable apartment, among dirty diapers and wild quarrels. Brutal fights flourished in the school. The boy had to earn some pennies through hard work so as not to die of hunger.

Green belonged to the number of people who do not know how to get along in life. In misfortunes, he was lost, hiding from people, ashamed of his poverty. A rich fantasy instantly betrayed him at the first encounter with difficult reality.

Already in adulthood, in order not to die of hunger, Green made a bow, went with it to the outskirts of the Old Crimea and shot birds, hoping to kill at least one and eat fresh meat. But nothing came of it, of course.

Green always hoped for chance, for unexpected happiness. All his stories are filled with dreams of a "dazzling event" and joy, but most of all - his story "Scarlet Sails". But Green began writing this captivating fairy tale book in Petrograd in 1920, when, after a typhus, he wandered around the icy city in search of an occasional daily lodging for the night.

"Scarlet Sails" is a poem that affirms the power of love, the human spirit. “Illuminated through and through, like the morning sun”, love for life, for spiritual youth and the belief that a person in a fit of happiness is able to work miracles with his own hands.

I have "Scarlet Sails" - a story about a captain and a girl. I found out how it happened quite by accident: I stopped at a display case with toys and saw a boat with a sharp white silk sail. This toy told me something, but I didn’t know what, then I wondered if the sail would say more red, and better than that, scarlet, because scarlet has a bright jubilation. Rejoicing means knowing why you rejoice. And so, unfolding from this, taking the waves and the ship with scarlet sails, I saw the purpose of his being.

From the drafts of Alexander Grin to the novel "Running on the Waves", 1925

The Vyatka life dragged on dull and monotonous, until in the spring of 1895 Green saw a cab driver and two navigational students in a white sailor uniform on the pier.

« I stopped,- Green wrote about this case, - and looked, as if enchanted, at the guests from a mysterious, beautiful world for me. I didn't envy. And felt delight and longing».

Since then, dreams of naval service, of the "picturesque work of navigation" have not left Alexander. He was going to Odessa. However, it turned out not so easy to get a job on some ship - who needed a frail young man with dreamy eyesto sailors! Finally, he was taken without pay as an apprentice on a steamer, but after two voyages they put him off - he could not pay for food.

Green was also an assistant to the owner of the schooner, who pushed him around like a dog. Green hardly slept - broken tiles served as a pillow for him. Soon he was thrown out without paying any money. Returning to Odessa, he worked in port warehouses as a marker and made the only foreign flight to Alexandria.

Tired of Odessa, Green decided to return to Vyatka. He went home "hare", without things. The last two hundred kilometers had to be walked through liquid mud - there was bad weather. And the damned Vyatka life began again. Then there were years of fruitless searches for a suitable “occupation”. I had to be both a bath attendant and a scribe: I wrote petitions to the court for peasants in a tavern.

Unable to stand it, he left for Baku. Life in Baku was so desperately hard that Green had a memory of it as of continuous cold and darkness - he lived by random, penny work ... He was dying of malaria in a fishing artel and almost died of thirst on the deadly sandy beaches of the Caspian Sea. I spent the night in empty boilers on the pier under overturned boats or simply under fences.

Life in Baku left a cruel imprint on Grin - he became sad and taciturn, walked heavily, like porters, overworked. He was very trusting, and this trust was outwardly expressed in a friendly, open handshake. Green said that the best way to recognize people is by the way they shake hands.

From Baku, Green returned to Vyatka again to his drunken father, who constantly demanded money, but there was none. And then he was seized by a thirst for a happy occasion, and in winter, in severe frosts, he went on foot to the Urals - to look for gold. My father gave me three rubles for the journey. Green worked in the mines, wandered with a benevolent old man (who later turned out to be a murderer and a thief), was a lumberjack, a raftsman ...

After the Urals, Green sailed as a sailor on the barge of the famous shipowner Bulychov (the prototype of Gorky's play). But this work also ended, and he did not find anything better than to become a soldier. He served in an infantry regiment in Penza, first encountered the Social Revolutionaries and began to read revolutionary books. After serving for about a year, Green deserted the regiment and went into revolutionary work. He lived in Sevastopol, where he became famous as an underground speaker.

“Some shades of Sevastopol entered my stories,” Green admitted. But to anyone who knows Green's books and knows Sevastopol, it is clear that the legendary Zurbagan is an almost exact description of Sevastopol. In the autumn of 1903, Green was arrested and spent time in Sevastopol and Feodosiya prisons until the end of October 1905. There he first began to write.

At the beginning of 1908, in St. Petersburg, Green published the first author's collection "The Cap of Invisibility" (with the subtitle "Stories about Revolutionaries"). Most of the stories in it are about the Social Revolutionaries.

Another event was the final break with the Social Revolutionaries. Green hated the existing system as before, but he began to form his own positive ideal, which was not at all like the Social Revolutionary.

The third important event was the marriage - his imaginary "prison bride" 24-year-old Vera Abramova became Green's wife. Knock and Gelli - the main characters of the story "A Hundred Miles Down the River" (1912) - are Green and Vera themselves. In 1910, his second collection, Stories, was published. Most of the stories included there are written in a realistic manner, but in two - "Reno Island" and "Lanfier Colony" - the future Green storyteller is already guessed. The action of these stories takes place in a conditional country, in style they are close to his later work. Green himself believed that starting from these stories he could be considered a writer. In the early years, he published 25 stories a year. As a new original and talented Russian writer, he meets Alexei Tolstoy, Leonid Andreev, Valery Bryusov, Mikhail Kuzmin and other major writers. He became especially close to A.I. Kuprin.

Soon the writer was again arrested on the old case, exiled to Pinega, then to Kegostrov. In exile, he wrote, read, hunted a lot and, according to him, even rested from his past hard labor life.

In 1912 Green returned to St. Petersburg. Here began the best period of his life, a kind of "Boldino autumn". At the time, Green wrote almost continuously.Soon he took his first book to his father in Vyatka to please the old man, who had already come to terms with the idea that a useless tramp had come out of his son. His father did not believe him - he had to show contracts with publishers and other documents to convince the old man that Green had really become a "man". This meeting was the last: soon the father died.

In the autumn of 1913, Vera decided to separate from her husband. In her memoirs, she complains about Green's unpredictability and uncontrollability, his constant revelry, mutual misunderstanding. Green made several attempts at reconciliation, but without success. On his 1915 collection, presented to Vera, Green wrote: "To my only friend." He did not part with the portrait of Vera until the end of his life. In 1918 he married a certain Maria Dolidze. Within a few months, the marriage was recognized as a mistake, and the couple broke up. In the spring of 1921, Green married a 26-year-old widow, nurse Nina Nikolaevna Mironova (after Korotkova's first husband). They met back in early 1918, when Nina worked for the Petrograd Echo newspaper. Her first husband died in the war. A new meeting took place in January 1921, Nina was in desperate need and was selling things (Green later described a similar episode at the beginning of the story "Pied Piper"). A month later, he proposed to her.

The February Revolution found Grin in Finland. He welcomed her with delight. And then he went on foot to Petrograd - the trains were no longer running. He left there all his things and books, and even a portrait of Poe, with whom he never parted.

In 1920 Green was drafted into the Red Army and served near Pskov. He fell ill with typhus, he was brought to Petrograd and, together with other patients, was placed in Botkinskno barracks. Green was seriously ill and was discharged from the hospital almost disabled.

Alexander Green. Sevastopol, 1923

Homeless, half-sick and hungry, he wandered along the granite embankments in search of lodging for the night, food and warmth. There was a time of queues, rations, icy apartments. The thought of death grew stronger and stronger. The writer Maxim Gorky, having learned about the plight of Green, did everything for him that was in his power. He was given an academic ration, a room on the Moika with a bed and a table. In addition, Gorky gave Green a job. Often at night, remembering his hard life and Gorky's help, Green, who had not yet recovered from his illness, wept with gratitude.

In 1923 Green moved to Feodosia - he could not live without the sea. There he lived until 1930, and then moved to Stary Krym - a city of flowers, silence and ruins. Here he died alone from a painful disease - cancer of the stomach and leasy in 1932.

Alexander Grin populated his books with a world of cheerful and courageous people, a beautiful land full of wonderful forests and uncharted sun, and amazing events that turn your head like a sipguilt.
And even though real life was limited for him by the philistine Vyatka, a dirty vocational school, doss houses, overwork, prison and xchronic hunger. But somewhere beyond the gray horizon, countries created from light, sea winds and flowering grasses sparkled and beckoned to themselves. There lived other people, black from sunburn - gold diggers, hunters, artists, cheerful vagabonds, selfless women. And, above all, sailors.

Alexander Green with his wife. Old Crimea, 1926

Living without faith that such countries exist somewhere was too hard for Green, sometimes unbearable. And when the revolution came, Greene was sincerely happy, but the wonderful vistas of the new future were still unclear, and Greene belonged to people suffering from eternal impatience. Reality could not give him a momentary fulfillment of his dreams. Only imagination carried me to the desired environment, to the circle of the most extraordinary events and people.

If life blossomed overnight, like in a fairy tale, Green would be delighted. But he did not know how to wait and did not want to. Waiting bored him and destroyed the poetic structure of his sensations. Perhaps this was the reason for Green's alienation from time, which was obscure to those around him.
Alexander Green died too soon. Death caught him at the very beginning of a spiritual crisis. Green began to listen and look closely at reality. If not for death, then perhaps he would have become one of the most original writers who organically combined reality with free and bold imagination in his work.

Natalya Tendora "ALEXANDER GREEN"

real name - Grinevsky

Russian prose writer and poet, representative of neo-romanticism

Alexander Green

short biography

Real surname Alexander Stepanovich Green- Russian Soviet prose writer of Polish origin, who created his works in line with romantic realism, - Grinevsky. His name is associated, first of all, with the story "Scarlet Sails".

He was born in the Vyatka province, the city of Slobodskaya on August 23 (August 11, O.S.), 1880. A tendency to change places, daydreaming, supported by a love of books about foreign lands and travels, he already had childhood years, he did not once attempted to run away from home. In 1896, his studies at the four-year Vyatka city school ended, and Alexander left for Odessa, where he began a six-year period of vagrancy.

Having settled on a ship, at first he wanted to realize his old dream of becoming a navigator, but he soon lost interest in it. A fisherman, a loader, a digger, a lumberjack, a gold digger and even a sword swallower - Alexander Grinevsky tried on all these professions, but he could not get rid of the most severe need, which in 1902 forced him to enlist in the army as a volunteer.

His service lasted 9 months, of which a third he spent in a punishment cell, and ended in desertion. At this time, his rapprochement with the Socialist-Revolutionaries takes place, who involve him in propaganda work. The agitation of sailors in Sevastopol ended for Green in 1903 with his arrest, and an unsuccessful attempt to escape turned into two years in a maximum security prison. However, he continued to engage in propaganda work, and in 1905 he was to be exiled to Siberia for 10 years, and only an amnesty helped to avoid such an unenviable fate.

In 1906, Alexander Grin's first story, "To Italy", was published, and the Merit of Private Panteleev and The Elephant and Pug, which followed it in the same year, were confiscated right at the printing house and burned. Their author, who was at that time in St. Petersburg, was arrested and exiled to the Tobolsk province, but the disgraced novice writer managed to quickly escape from the place of exile with other people's documents. In 1907, the story “The Case” was published, notable for the fact that for the first time in his creative biography, the author signed with the pseudonym A.S. Green. The following year, the first collection of short stories, The Cap of Invisibility, was published, which did not go unnoticed.

In 1910, Grin was sent into exile for the second time - this time for two years in the Arkhangelsk province. Upon returning home, Green actively writes and publishes, his stories, novellas, satirical miniatures, poems, poems are published in 60 editions. Until October 1917, Green published about 350 works. During this period, the romantic orientation of his writings is formed, which is in conflict with the harsh reality.

The February revolution gave rise to hopes for a change for the better, but they were dispelled with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks. Their actions further disappointed Green in the surrounding reality, he began to create his own world with renewed vigor. Today it is difficult to imagine that the famous story “Scarlet Sails”, beloved by all romantics, was born in Petrograd, engulfed in revolutionary transformations (it was published in 1923). The heroes of the works and the fictional cities of Green did not fit well into Soviet literature, filled with the pathos of building socialism - along with their author. His writings were published less and less and were increasingly criticized.

In 1924, A.S. Green "The Shining World", and in the same year he moved to Feodosia. Suffering from tuberculosis and poverty, he continues to write, and new stories come out from under his pen, the novels The Golden Chain (1925), The Wave Runner (1928), Jesse and Morgiana (1929), in 1930 . saw the light of the novel "The Road to Nowhere", permeated with the tragic worldview of the sick and misunderstood artist. The last place of residence in Green's biography was the city of Stary Krym, where he moved in 1930 and died on July 8, 1932.

Biography from Wikipedia

Alexander Green(real name - Grinevsky; August 11, 1880, Sloboda, Vyatka province, Russian Empire - July 8, 1932, Stary Krym, USSR) - Russian prose writer and poet, representative of neo-romanticism, author of philosophical and psychological, with elements of symbolic fiction, works. He began to print in 1906, in total he published about 400 works.

The creator of a fictional country, which, thanks to the critic K. Zelinsky, was called "Greenland". Many of his works take place in this country, including his most famous romantic books - the novel “Running on the Waves” and the extravaganza “Scarlet Sails”.

early years

Alexander Grinevsky was born on August 11 (23), 1880 in the city of Sloboda, Vyatka province. Father - Stefan Grinevsky (Polish Stefan Hryniewski, 1843-1914), a Polish gentry from the Disna district of the Vilna province of the Russian Empire. For participation in the January Uprising of 1863, at the age of 20, he was exiled indefinitely to Kolyvan, Tomsk province. Later he was allowed to move to the Vyatka province, where he arrived in 1868. In Russia it was called Stepan Evseevich". In 1873 he married 16-year-old Russian nurse Anna Stepanovna Lepkova (1857-1895). For the first 7 years they had no children, Alexander became the first-born, later he had a brother Boris and two sisters, Antonina and Ekaterina.

Sasha learned to read at the age of 6, and the first book he read was Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. From childhood, Green loved books about sailors and travels. He dreamed of going to sea as a sailor and, driven by this dream, made attempts to run away from home. The upbringing of the boy was inconsistent - he was either spoiled, then severely punished, then left unattended.

In 1889, nine-year-old Sasha was sent to the preparatory class of the local real school. There fellow practitioners first gave him the nickname " Green". The report of the school noted that the behavior of Alexander Grinevsky was worse than all the others, and in case of non-correction, he could be expelled from the school. Nevertheless, Alexander was able to finish the preparatory class and enter the first class, but in the second class he wrote an insulting poem about teachers and was nevertheless expelled from the school. At the request of his father, Alexander in 1892 was admitted to another school, which had a bad reputation in Vyatka.

At the age of 15, Sasha was left without a mother who died of tuberculosis. 4 months later (May 1895), my father married the widow Lidia Avenirovna Boretskaya. Alexander's relationship with his stepmother was tense, and he settled separately from his father's new family. Subsequently, Green described the atmosphere of the provincial Vyatka as “ swamp of prejudice, lies, hypocrisy and falsehood". The boy lived alone, enthusiastically reading books and writing poetry. He worked as a binder of books, correspondence of documents. At the suggestion of his father, he became interested in hunting, but due to his impulsive nature, he rarely returned with prey.

Wanderings and revolutionary activity (1896-1906)

In 1896, after graduating from the four-year Vyatka city school, 16-year-old Alexander left for Odessa, deciding to become a sailor. His father gave him 25 rubles of money and the address of his Odessa friend. for a while" a sixteen-year-old, beardless, puny, narrow-shouldered boy in a straw hat" (so ironically described himself then Green in " Autobiographies”) wandered in an unsuccessful search for work and was desperately hungry. In the end, he turned to a friend of his father, who fed him and got him a job as a sailor on the steamer "Platon", cruising along the route Odessa - Batum - Odessa. However, once Green managed to visit abroad, in Egyptian Alexandria.

The sailor did not come out of Green - he was disgusted with the prosaic sailor's work. Soon he quarreled with the captain and left the ship. In 1897, Green went back to Vyatka, spent a year there and again left in search of his fortune, this time to Baku. There he tried many professions - he was a fisherman, laborer, worked in railway workshops. In the summer he returned to his father, then again went on a journey. He was a lumberjack, a gold digger in the Urals, a miner in an iron mine, and a theater copyist. " For several years he tried to enter into life as into a stormy sea; and each time he, beaten on stones, was thrown ashore - into the hated, philistine Vyatka; dull, prim, deaf city».

Vyatka zemstvo real school. Of one of the reasons for his expulsion, Greene wrote: Quite a large library of the Vyatka zemstvo real school<…>was the cause of my poor success».

In March 1902, Green interrupted his series of wanderings and became (either under pressure from his father, or tired of starvation ordeals) a soldier in the 213th Orovai reserve infantry battalion stationed in Penza. The morals of military service significantly increased Green's revolutionary moods. Six months later (of which he spent three and a half in a punishment cell), he deserted, was caught in Kamyshin, and fled again. In the army, Green met with the Socialist-Revolutionary propagandists, who appreciated the young rebel and helped him hide in Simbirsk.

From that moment on, Green, having received the party nickname " Lanky”, sincerely gives all his strength to the fight against the social system he hates, although he refused to participate in the execution of terrorist acts, limiting himself to propaganda among the workers and soldiers of different cities. Subsequently, he did not like to talk about his "Socialist-Revolutionary" activities. The Socialist-Revolutionaries appreciated his bright, enthusiastic performances. Here is an excerpt from the memoirs of N. Ya. Bykhovsky, a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party:

"Lanky" turned out to be an invaluable underground worker. Being himself once a sailor and having once made a long voyage, he perfectly knew how to approach the sailors. He perfectly knew the life and psychology of the sailor masses and knew how to speak with her in her language. In his work among the sailors of the Black Sea squadron, he used all this with great success and immediately gained considerable popularity here. For the sailors, after all, he was quite his own person, and this is extremely important. None of us could compete with him in this respect.

Green said later that Bykhovsky once told him: “ You would make a writer". For this, Green called him " my godfather in literature»:

Already tested: the sea, vagrancy, wanderings showed me that this is still not what my soul longs for. What she wanted, I didn't know. Bykhovsky's words were not only an impetus, they were a light that illuminated my mind and the secret depths of my soul. I realized what I long for, my soul found its way.

In 1903, Greene was once again arrested in Sevastopol for "speeches of anti-government content" and the dissemination of revolutionary ideas, "which led to the undermining of the foundations of autocracy and the overthrow of the foundations of the existing system." For trying to escape, he was transferred to a maximum security prison, where he spent more than a year. It is described in police documents as " nature is closed, embittered, capable of anything, even risking her life". In January 1904, the Minister of the Interior V.K. Plehve, shortly before the SR assassination attempt on him, received a report from the Minister of War A.N. a very important figure from civilians, who called himself first Grigoriev, and then Grinevsky».

The investigation dragged on for more than a year (November 1903 - February 1905) because of two attempts to escape Green and his complete denial. Green was judged in February 1905 by the Sevastopol Naval Court. The prosecutor demanded 20 years of hard labor. Lawyer A. S. Zarudny managed to reduce the sentence to 10 years of exile in Siberia.

In October 1905, Grin was released under a general amnesty, but already in January 1906 he was arrested again in St. Petersburg. In prison, in the absence of acquaintances and relatives, she visited him (under the guise of a bride) Vera Pavlovna Abramova, the daughter of a wealthy official who sympathized with revolutionary ideals.

In May, Grin was exiled for four years to the city of Turinsk, Tobolsk province. There he stayed only 3 days and fled to Vyatka, where, with the help of his father, he got someone else's passport in the name Malginova(later it will be one of the literary pseudonyms of the writer), according to which he left for St. Petersburg.

The beginning of creativity (1906-1917)

Alexander Grin with his first wife Vera in the village of Veliky Bor near Pinega, 1911

The years 1906-1908 became a turning point in Green's life. First of all, he became a writer.

In the summer of 1906, Green wrote 2 stories - “ Merit of Private Panteleev" and " Elephant and Pug". The first story was signed " A.S.G. and published in the autumn of the same year. It was published as a propaganda brochure for punishing soldiers and described the atrocities of the army among the peasants. Green received the fee, but the entire circulation was confiscated at the printing house and destroyed (burned) by the police, only a few copies were accidentally preserved. The second story suffered a similar fate - it was handed over to the printing house, but was not printed.

It was not until December 5 of that year that Green's stories began to reach readers; and the first "legal" work was the story "To Italy", written in the autumn of 1906, signed " A. A. M-v" (i.e Malginov). For the first time (titled " in Italy”), it was published in the evening edition of the newspaper “ Exchange statements"dated 5(18).12.1906

Alias ​​" A. S. Green" first appeared under the story "The Case" (the first publication was in the newspaper " Comrade"of March 25 (April 7), 1907).

At the beginning of 1908, in St. Petersburg, Green published the first author's collection " Invisible hat" (subtitled " Tales of revolutionaries"). Most of the stories in it are about the Social Revolutionaries.

Another event was the final break with the Social Revolutionaries. Green hated the existing system as before, but he began to form his own positive ideal, which was not at all like the Social Revolutionary.

The third important event was the marriage - his imaginary "prison bride" 24-year-old Vera Abramova became Green's wife. Knock and Gelli- the main characters of the story "A Hundred Miles Down the River" (1912) are Green and Vera themselves.

According to V. B. Shklovsky, A. S. Green’s aunt was the St. Petersburg poetess, translator and playwright Isabella Grinevskaya. This statement is repeated by L. I. Borisov, the author of the artistic biography “ Wizard of Gel-Gyu". A. N. Varlamov casts doubt on Shklovsky's version, calling him a hoaxer and a possible author of another legend about Grin. The alleged aunt and nephew were published in the same illustrated magazines, but one way or another, Alexander Grin's entry into literature was quite independent.

In 1910, his second collection, stories". Most of the stories included there are written in a realistic manner, but two - "Reno Island" and " Colony Lanfier”- the future Green the storyteller is already guessing. The action of these stories takes place in a conditional country, in style they are close to his later work. Green himself believed that starting from these stories he could be considered a writer. In the early years, he published 25 stories a year.

A. Green in St. Petersburg. Photo 1910

As a new original and talented Russian writer, he meets Alexei Tolstoy, Leonid Andreev, Valery Bryusov, Mikhail Kuzmin and other major writers. He became especially close to A.I. Kuprin. For the first time in his life, Green began to earn a lot of money, which, however, did not stay with him, quickly disappearing after revelry and card games.

On July 27, 1910, the police finally discovered that the writer Green was the fugitive exile Grinevsky. He was arrested for the third time and in the autumn of 1911 was exiled to Pinega, Arkhangelsk province. Vera went with him, they were allowed to officially get married. In the link, Greene wrote " Life of Gnor" and " Blue Telluri Cascade". The term of his exile was reduced to two years, and in May 1912 the Grinevskys returned to St. Petersburg. Other works of the romantic direction soon followed: Devil of orange waters», « Zurbagan shooter"(1913). They finally form the features of a fictional country, which the literary critic K. Zelinsky will call "Greenland".

Green publishes mainly in the "small" press: in newspapers and illustrated magazines. His works are published by Birzhevye Vedomosti and the supplement to the newspaper, the Novoye Slovo magazine, the New Journal for All, Rodina, Niva and its monthly supplements, the Vyatskaya Rech newspaper and many others. Occasionally, his prose is placed in the solid "thick" monthly journals "Russian Thought" and "Modern World". In the latter, Green published from 1912 to 1918 thanks to his acquaintance with A.I. Kuprin. In 1913-1914, his three-volume edition was published by the Prometheus publishing house.

In the autumn of 1913, Vera decided to separate from her husband. In her memoirs, she complains about Green's unpredictability and uncontrollability, his constant revelry, mutual misunderstanding. Green made several attempts at reconciliation, but without success. On his 1915 collection given to Vera, Greene wrote: To my only friend". He did not part with the portrait of Vera until the end of his life. Almost simultaneously (1914), Green suffered another loss: his father died in Vyatka. Green also kept a photograph of his father in all his travels.

In the memoirs of Nina Nikolaevna Green, Green's words are cited about how he spent the bohemian pre-war years.

I was nicknamed "mustang", so I was charged with a thirst for life, full of fire, images, plots. He wrote on a grand scale, and did not outlive himself. I seized upon life, accumulating greed for it in a hungry, vagabond, compressed youth, prison. Greedily grabbed and devoured it. Couldn't get enough. Wasted and burned himself from all over. I forgave myself everything, I have not yet found myself.

In 1914, Greene became a contributor to the popular New Satyricon magazine and published his collection Incident on Dog Street as an appendix to the magazine. Green worked during this period extremely productively. He did not yet dare to start writing a long story or novel, but his best stories of this time show the deep progress of Green the writer. The subject of his works is expanding, the style is becoming more and more professional - it is enough to compare the cheerful story " Captain Duke"and a sophisticated, psychologically accurate short story" Returned hell"(1915).

"Captain Duke" Monthly literary and popular-scientific supplements to Niva, October 1916

After the outbreak of the First World War, some of Greene's stories take on a distinct anti-war character: such, for example, " Battalist Shuang», « blue spinning top"("Niva", 1915) and "Poisoned Island". Due to the “impermissible review of the reigning monarch” that became known to the police, Green was forced to hide in Finland from the end of 1916, but, having learned about the February Revolution, he returned to Petrograd.

In the spring of 1917, he wrote the essay " On foot for the revolution”, testifying to the writer's hope for renewal. I. S. Sokolov-Mikitov recalled how he and Green " lived with the anxieties and hopes of those days". Some hope for a change for the better fills the poems written by Green during this period (“XX Century”, 1917, No. 13):

The bells are ringing,
And their powerfully formidable singing ...
They hum, they call the bells
On the bright holiday of rebirth.

Soon the revolutionary reality disappointed the writer.

After the October Revolution, Green's notes and feuilletons appeared one after another in the journal "New Satyricon" and in the small circulation newspaper "Devil's Pepper Pot", condemning cruelty and atrocities. He said: " I can't get my head around the idea that violence can be destroyed by violence.". In the spring of 1918, the magazine, along with all other opposition publications, was banned. Greene was arrested for the fourth time and almost shot. According to A. N. Varlamov, the facts show that Green " did not accept Soviet life ... even more violently than pre-revolutionary life: he did not speak at meetings, did not join any literary groups, did not sign collective letters, platforms and appeals to the Central Committee of the party, wrote his manuscripts and letters according to pre-revolutionary spelling, and counted the days according to the old calendar ... this dreamer and inventor - in the words of a writer from the near future - did not live by lies". The only good news was the resolution of divorces, which Green immediately took advantage of and married a certain Maria Dolidze. Within a few months, the marriage was recognized as a mistake, and the couple broke up.

In the summer of 1919, Green was drafted into the Red Army as a signalman, but he soon fell ill with typhus and ended up in the Botkin barracks for almost a month. Maxim Gorky sent honey, tea and bread to the seriously ill Green.

After recovering, Grin, with the assistance of Gorky, managed to get an academic ration and housing - a room in the "House of Arts" on Nevsky Prospekt, 15, where Green lived next to N. S. Gumilyov, V. A. Rozhdestvensky, O. E. Mandelstam, V. Kaverin. Neighbors recalled that Green lived as a hermit, almost did not communicate with anyone, but it was here that he wrote his most famous, touching and poetic work - the Scarlet Sails extravaganza (published in 1923). " It was hard to imagine that such a bright flower, warmed by love for people, could be born here, in gloomy, cold and half-starved Petrograd, in the winter twilight of the harsh 1920; and that he was raised by a man outwardly gloomy, unfriendly and, as it were, closed in a special world where he did not want to let anyone in", - recalled Vs. Christmas. Among the first to appreciate this masterpiece was Maxim Gorky, who often read to guests the episode of the appearance before Assol- the main heroine of the extravaganza - a fabulous ship.

In the spring of 1921, Green married a 26-year-old widow, nurse Nina Nikolaevna Mironova (after Korotkova's first husband). They met back in early 1918, when Nina worked for the Petrograd Echo newspaper. Her first husband died in the war. A new meeting took place in January 1921, Nina was in desperate need and was selling things (Green later described a similar episode at the beginning of the story "Pied Piper"). A month later, he proposed to her. During the next eleven years assigned to Green by fate, they did not part, and both considered their meeting a gift of fate. Green dedicated the Scarlet Sails extravaganza completed this year to Nina. (" Nina Nikolaevna Green is presented and dedicated by the Author. PBG, November 23, 1922»)

The couple rented a room on Panteleymonovskaya Street, moved their meager luggage there: a bunch of manuscripts, a few clothes, a photograph of Father Green and an unchanging portrait of Vera Pavlovna. At first, Green was hardly published, but with the beginning of the NEP, private publishing houses appeared, and he managed to publish a new collection " White fire» (1922). The collection included a vivid story "Ships in Lissa", which Green himself considered one of the best.

In the early 1920s, Green decided to start his first novel, which he called The Shining World. The protagonist of this complex symbolist work is a flying superman Drood, persuading people to choose instead of the values ​​of "this world" the highest values ​​of the Shining World. In 1924 the novel was published in Leningrad. He continued to write stories, the peaks here were " Loquacious brownie», « Pied Piper», « Fandango».

With the fees, Green arranged a feast, went with Nina to his beloved Crimea and bought an apartment in Leningrad, then sold this apartment and moved to Feodosia. The initiator of the move was Nina, who wanted to save Green from drunken Petrograd sprees and pretended to be sick. In the autumn of 1924, Green bought an apartment at 10 Galereinaya Street (now there is the Alexander Green Museum). Occasionally, the couple went to Koktebel to see Maximilian Voloshin.

In Feodosia, Green wrote the novel " gold chain" (1925, published in the journal "New World"), conceived as " memories of the dream of a boy seeking miracles and finding them". In the autumn of 1926, Green completed his main masterpiece - the novel "Running on the Waves", on which he worked for a year and a half. This novel combines the best features of the writer's talent: a deep mystical idea of ​​the need for a dream and the realization of a dream, subtle poetic psychologism, and a fascinating romantic plot. For two years the author tried to publish the novel in Soviet publishing houses, and only at the end of 1928 the book was published by the Zemlya i Fabrika publishing house. With great difficulty, in 1929, Green's last novels were also published: Jessie and Morgiana», « Road to nowhere».

Green noted sadly: The era is passing by. She doesn't need me, just the way I am. And I can't be different. And I don't want». « Although for all my writing nothing has been said about me as about a person who has not licked the heels of modernity, no and never, but I know my own worth».

Prohibited. Last years and death (1929-1932)

ghoul, Green's favorite hawk, with his owner (1929). The writer's story is dedicated to him. The story of one hawk».

In 1927, the private publisher L. V. Wolfson began publishing a 15-volume collection of Green's works, but only 8 volumes were published, after which Wolfson was arrested by the GPU.

NEP came to an end. Green's attempts to insist on fulfilling the contract with the publishing house only led to huge legal costs and ruin. Green's binges began to repeat again. However, in the end, the Green family still managed to win the process, sue seven thousand rubles, which, however, greatly depreciated inflation.

The apartment in Feodosia had to be sold. In 1930, the Grinevskys moved to the city of Stary Krym, where life was cheaper. Since 1930, Soviet censorship, with the motivation " you do not merge with the era”, banned Green's reprints and imposed a limit on new books: one per year. Both Green and Nina were desperately hungry and often sick. Green tried to hunt the surrounding birds with a bow and arrow, but was unsuccessful.

Novel " touchy”, begun by Green at this time, was never completed, although some critics consider him the best in his work. Green mentally thought through the whole plot to the end and said to Nina: “ Some scenes are so good that when I remember them, I smile myself.". At the end of April 1931, being already seriously ill, Grin went for the last time (through the mountains) to Koktebel, to visit Voloshin. This route is still popular with hikers and is known as "Green's trail".

In the summer, Green went to Moscow, but not a single publisher showed interest in his new novel. Upon his return, Green said wearily to Nina: “ Amba us. No more printing". There was no response to a request for a pension from the Writers' Union. As historians found out, at a meeting of the board, Lidia Seifullina stated: “ Green is our ideological enemy. The Union should not help such writers! Not a single penny in principle!» Green sent another request for help to Gorky; it is not known whether she reached her destination, but there was no answer either. In the memoirs of Nina Nikolaevna, this period is characterized by one phrase: “ Then he began to die».

In May 1932, after new petitions, a transfer of 250 rubles unexpectedly came. from the Union of Writers, sent for some reason to the name " writer Green's widow Nadezhda Green”, although Green was still alive. There is a legend that the reason was Green's last mischief - he sent a telegram to Moscow " Green died send two hundred funeral».

The grave of A. S. Grin at the city cemetery of Stary Krym

Alexander Grin died on the morning of July 8, 1932, at the age of 52, in Stary Krym, from stomach cancer. Two days before his death, he asked to invite a priest and confessed.

The writer was buried at the city cemetery of Stary Krym. Nina chose a place with a view of the sea. On the grave of Green, the sculptor Tatyana Gagarina erected a monument " Running on the waves».

Upon learning of Grin's death, several leading Soviet writers called for a collection of his writings to be published; even Seifullina joined them. A. Green's collection " Fantastic novels” came out 2 years later, in 1934.

Nina Nikolaevna Green, the writer's widow, continued to live in Stary Krym, in an adobe house, and worked as a nurse. When the Nazi army captured the Crimea, Nina stayed with her seriously ill mother in the Nazi-occupied territory, worked in the occupation newspaper "Official Bulletin of the Staro-Krymsky District". Then she was driven away to work in Germany, in 1945 she voluntarily returned from the American zone of occupation to the USSR.

After the trial, Nina received ten years in the camps for "collaborationism and treason", with confiscation of property. She served her sentence in the camps on the Pechora. Great support, including things and products, was provided to her by Green's first wife, Vera Pavlovna. Nina served almost her entire term and was released in 1955 under an amnesty (rehabilitated in 1997). Vera Pavlovna died earlier, in 1951.

Scene from V. M. Yurovsky's ballet " Scarlet Sails". Bolshoi Theatre, December 5, 1943 Assol- Olga Lepeshinskaya.

Meanwhile, the books of the "Soviet romantic" Green continued to be published in the USSR until 1944. In besieged Leningrad, radio programs were broadcast with the reading of Scarlet Sails (1943), and the premiere of the ballet Scarlet Sails was held at the Bolshoi Theater. In 1946, the story of L. I. Borisov " Wizard of Gel-Gyu” about Alexander Grin, which earned the praise of K. G. Paustovsky and B. S. Grinevsky, but in the future - condemnation from N. N. Green.

During the years of the struggle against cosmopolitanism, Alexander Grin, like many other cultural figures (A. A. Akhmatova, M. M. Zoshchenko, D. D. Shostakovich), was branded in the Soviet press as a “cosmopolitan”, alien to proletarian literature, “ militant reactionary and spiritual emigrant". For example, an article by V. Vazhdaev was devoted to Green's "exposing" Preacher of cosmopolitanism"(" New World ", No. 1, 1950). Green's books were taken from libraries en masse.

After Stalin's death (1953), the ban on some writers was lifted. Beginning in 1956, through the efforts of K. Paustovsky, Yu. Olesha, I. Novikov and others, Green was returned to literature. His works were published in millions of copies. Having received through the efforts of Green's friends a fee for " Favorites”(1956), Nina Nikolaevna arrived in Stary Krym, found with difficulty the abandoned grave of her husband and found out that the house where Green died had passed to the chairman of the local executive committee and was used as a barn and a chicken coop. In 1960, after several years of struggle to return home, Nina Nikolaevna opened on a voluntary basis Green Museum in Stary Krym. There she spent the last ten years of her life, with a pension of 21 rubles (the copyright was no longer valid). In July 1970, the Green Museum in Feodosia was also opened, and a year later, Green's house in Stary Krym also received the status of a museum. Its opening by the Crimean regional committee of the CPSU was linked to the conflict with Nina Nikolaevna: “ We are for Green, but against his widow. The museum will be only when she dies».

Nina Nikolaevna Green died on September 27, 1970 in a Kyiv hospital. She bequeathed to bury herself next to her husband. The local party leadership, irritated by the loss of the chicken coop, imposed a ban; and Nina was buried at the other end of the cemetery. On October 23 of the following year, Nina's birthday, six of her friends reburied the coffin at night in the place intended for it.

Creativity and personal position

Artistic and ideological features of prose

Green is openly didactic, that is, his works are based on a clear system of values ​​and invite the reader to accept and share these ideals with the author.

It is generally accepted that Green is a romantic, " dream knight". Greene understands a dream as a desire of a spiritually rich person for higher, truly human values, opposing them to soullessness, greed and animal pleasures. The difficult choice between these two paths and the consequences of the choice made is one of the important themes in Green. Its goal is to show how good and dream, love and compassion are organic for a person, and how evil, cruelty, alienation are destructive. Critic Irina Vasyuchenko notes the rare transparency and purity of the moral atmosphere inherent in Green's prose. " The author more than believes in the power of the good beginnings of life - he knows it". Existing simultaneously in the real world and in the world of dreams, Green felt himself " translator between these two worlds". AT " scarlet sails" the author, through the mouth of Gray, calls to "work a miracle" for another person; " He will have a new soul and you will have a new one". In The Shining World, a similar call: " Enter into your life that world, the sparkles of which have already been given to you by a generous, secret hand.».

Among Green's tools are excellent taste, alien to naturalism, the ability to elevate the story to the level of a deep parable by simple means, and a vivid and exciting plot. Critics note that Greene is incredibly "cinematic". Transferring the action to a fictional country is also a well-thought-out technique: “ Greene is important by and large a person and only a person outside of his connection with history, nationality, wealth or poverty, religion and political beliefs. Green, as it were, abstracts, clears his heroes of these layers and sterilizes his world, because this way a person is better visible to him».

The writer focuses on the struggle in the human soul and depicts the subtlest psychological nuances with amazing skill. " The amount of Green's knowledge in this area, the accuracy of depicting the most complex mental processes, sometimes surpassing the level of ideas and the possibilities of his time, today surprise specialists.».

« Green said that sometimes he spends hours on a phrase, achieving the highest completeness of its expression, brilliance". He was close to the Symbolists, who tried to expand the possibilities of prose, to give it more dimensions - hence the frequent use of metaphors, paradoxical combinations of words, etc.

An example of Green's style on an example from "Scarlet Sails":

She knew how and loved to read, but in the book she read mainly between the lines, how she lived. Unconsciously, through a kind of inspiration, she made many ethereal subtle discoveries at every step, inexpressible, but important, like cleanliness and warmth. Sometimes - and this went on for a number of days - she was even reborn; the physical opposition of life vanished like silence in the strike of a bow, and everything that she saw, what she lived with, what was around, became a lace of secrets in the image of everyday life.

Green the Poet

Alexander Green from a poem "Dispute"

The balloon flew over the field of death.
Two wise men were arguing in a basket.
One said: “Let's rise to the blue firmament!
Get off the ground!
The earth is insane; her bloody world
Indomitable, eternal and heavy.
Let it amuse itself with bloody fun,
Breaking down the fence, yawning ox!
There, in the clouds, we will not worry,
The marble of their airy forms is beautiful.
Beautiful shine, and we ourselves, like gods,
Let us inhale the good nirvana chloroform.
Should I open the valve? "Not! - the second answered. -
I hear the rumble of battle below me...
Didn't you notice the movement of the troops?
They crawl like an ant swarm;
Their squares, trapezoids and rhombuses
Here, from a height, exquisitely funny ...
Oh king of the earth! How you deserve a bomb
Iron fury of war!
For centuries of incredible pain,
Suffering, wisdom only led to that,
So that you, drawn by an alien will,
Lying, crushed, in the dust?!
No, let's go down.
A picture of a vile dump,
Closely observed, will show again and again,
That humanity needs sticks
Not love."

Since 1907, Green's poetic works have appeared in print, although Green began writing poetry while still in the Vyatka real school. One of the poems then rendered a disservice to the twelve-year-old student - in 1892 he was expelled. After entering the Vyatka city school, writing poetry continued. Green spoke of this period as follows:

Sometimes I wrote poems and sent them to Niva, Rodina, never getting a response from the editors, although I attached stamps to the response. The poems were about hopelessness, hopelessness, broken dreams and loneliness - exactly the same poems that the weeklies were then full of. From the outside, one might think that a forty-year-old Chekhov hero is writing, and not a boy of eleven or fifteen years old

- A. S. Green, "Autobiographical Tale"

In an earlier autobiography written in 1913, Green stated: As a child, I diligently wrote bad poetry". The first mature poems that appeared in print, like his prose, were of a realistic nature. In addition, the satirical vein of Green the high school student showed itself with might and main in the poet's "adult" poems, which was reflected in a long-term collaboration with the New Satyricon magazine. In 1907, his first poem " Elegy"("When the blushing Duma is agitated", to the motive of Lermontov's poem "When the yellowing field is agitated"). But already in the poems of 1908-1909, romantic motives were clearly manifested in his work: “ young death», « Tramp», « Motyka».

Among the poets of the older generation, A.N. Varlamov calls the name of Valery Bryusov the most attractive for Alexander Green. Greene's biographer concludes: Greene " in his youth he wrote poems in which the influence of symbolism is felt stronger than in his prose". During the years of the revolution, Green paid tribute to civil poetry: " bells», « Dispute», « Petrograd in autumn 1917". Literary critic and emigrant poet Vadim Kreid at the end of the 20th century commented in the New York Novy Zhurnal about the last poem: something and valuable, because they are historical in the truest sense of the word. This kind of poetry was written by Pyotr Potemkin and Sasha Cherny, the emigrant newspaper poet Munstein and the “red”, as he called himself, the newspaper poet Vasily Knyazev.

Many of the poet's lyrical poems of the 1910-1920s were dedicated to Vera Pavlovna Abramova(Kalitskaya), Nina Nikolaevna Mironova(Greene). In 1919, he published in the journal Flame, edited by A. V. Lunacharsky, the poem “ Thrush and Lark Factory". However, by the 1920s, Green the prose writer overshadowed Green the poet.

The first attempt to publish in Soviet times (early 1960s) Green's collection of poetry ended in failure. Only the intervention of the poet Leonid Martynov shook the established opinion: “ Green's poems must be published. And as soon as possible". As N. Orishchuk writes, the fact that Green wrote satirical poems came in handy. This allowed Soviet criticism to conclude that the poet was revolutionary. However, Orishchuk believes that one of the Soviet myths about Grin, namely the myth of Grin as the author of a political declaration, lies in the statement about Grin's susceptibility to revolutionary sentiments. One way or another, several of Green's satirical poems were published in 1969 in the large series "Poet's Library" as part of the publication "Poetic Satire of the First Russian Revolution (1905-1907)". In the Collected Works of Green in 1991, as part of the third volume, 27 poems by the poet were printed.

Place in literature

A sailboat symbolizing Gray's ship from A. S. Green's story "Scarlet Sails"

Alexander Grin occupies a very special place in Russian and world literature. He had neither predecessors nor direct successors. Critics tried to compare him with those close in style to Edgar Allan Poe, Ernst Hoffmann, Robert Stevenson, Bret Hart and others - but each time it turned out that the similarity was superficial and limited. " He seems to be a classic of Soviet literature, but at the same time not quite: he is alone, out of the cage, out of the row, out of literary continuity.».

Even the genre of his works is difficult to determine. Sometimes Greene's books are classified as science fiction (or fantasy), but he himself protested against this. Yuri Olesha recalled that he once expressed to Green his admiration for the wonderful fantastic idea of ​​a flying man (“ shining world”), but Green was even offended: “ This is a symbolic novel, not a fantasy one! This is not a man flying at all, this is the soaring of the spirit!". A significant part of Green's works does not contain any fantastic devices (for example, " Scarlet Sails»).

However, for all the originality of Green's work, his main value orientations are in line with the traditions of Russian classics. From what has been said above about the ideological motives of Green's prose, brief conclusions can be drawn: Green is a moralist, a talented defender of the humanistic moral ideals traditional for Russian literature. " For the most part, the works of A. Green are poetically and psychologically refined fairy tales, short stories and sketches, which tell about the joy of fantasies coming true, about the human right to more than just “living” on earth, and about the fact that the land and sea are full of miracles - miracles of love, thought and nature, - gratifying encounters, deeds and legends ... In the romance of Green's type "there is no peace, there is no comfort", it comes from an unbearable thirst to see the world more perfect, more sublime, and therefore the soul of the artist reacts so painfully to everything gloomy , mournful, humiliated, offending humanity».

The poet Leonid Martynov, who revered the work of Alexander Grin, in the late 1960s drew the attention of his contemporaries to the fact that “ Greene was not only an excellent romanticist, but one of the brilliant critical realists". Due to the reprinting of the same works, Greene is known " far from being entirely, presenting it is still somehow one-sided, often tinsel-romantic».

Religious views

Alexander Grin was baptized according to the Orthodox rite, although his father was still a Catholic at that moment (he converted to Orthodoxy when Alexander was 11 years old). Some episodes of his early life, described in " Autobiographical story”, are interpreted as an indicator that in his youth Green was far from religion.

Later, Green's religious views began to change. The novel The Shining World (1921) contains an extensive and vivid scene, which was subsequently cut out at the request of Soviet censorship: Runa enters the village church, kneels in front of the painted “holy girl from Nazareth”, next to which “the thoughtful eyes of the little Christ looked to the distant destiny of the world." Runa asks God to strengthen her faith, and in response she sees how Drood appears in the picture and joins Christ and the Madonna. This scene and Drood's numerous addresses in the novel show that Greene saw his ideals as close to Christian ones, as one of the paths to the Shining World, "where it is quiet and dazzling."

Nina Nikolaevna recalled that in the Crimea they often attended church, Green's favorite holiday was Easter. In a letter to Vera shortly before his death (1930), Greene explained: " Nina and I believe, not trying to understand anything, because it is impossible to understand. We have been given only signs of the participation of the Higher Will in life". Green declined to be interviewed by Godless magazine, saying " I believe in God". Before his death, Green invited a local priest, confessed and took communion.

Creativity in the mirror of criticism

Pre-revolutionary criticism

The attitude of literary critics towards Green's work was heterogeneous and changed over time. Pre-revolutionary criticism was generally dismissive of Greene's writings, despite the fact that Greene's early realist stories were well received by readers. In particular, the Menshevik critic N.V. Volsky condemned Grin for excessive display of violence. Critics didn’t like the new romantic stage of the writer’s work that followed the realistic, which manifested itself in the choice of exotic names and plots, Green was not taken seriously and accused of imitating Edgar Allan Poe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Jack London, Haggard. The writer was defended by L. N. Voitolovsky and A. G. Gornfeld, who believed that the assimilation of Green to popular Western romantic writers, in fact, explains nothing in the creative method of Alexander Green.

Thus, the critic Gornfeld wrote in 1910: “Stranger people are his own, distant countries are close to him, because they are people, because all countries are our land ... Therefore, Bret Hart or Kipling, or Poe, who really gave a lot to Green's stories, - only a shell ... Green is par excellence a poet of an intense life. He wants to talk only about the important, the main, the fatal: and not in everyday life, but in the human soul. L. N. Voitolovsky supported Gornfeld, speaking about the story “Reno Island”: “Maybe this air is not quite tropical, but this is a new special air that all modernity breathes - disturbing, stuffy, tense and powerless ... Romance is different for romance. And decadents are called romantics... Green's romanticism is of a different sort. It is akin to Gorky's romanticism… He breathes with faith in life, with a thirst for healthy and strong sensations.” The relationship between the romantic works of Gorky and Green was also noted by other critics, for example, V. E. Kovsky.

Once again, Arkady Gornfeld returned to the allusions of Edgar Allan Poe in Green in 1917 in a review of the story “ Seeker of adventures". “At first impression, the story of Mr. Alexander Grin is easy to take for the story of Edgar Poe ... It is not difficult to reveal and show everything that is external, conditional, mechanical in this imitation ... Russian imitation is infinitely weaker than the English original. It is indeed weaker... This... would not be worth talking about if Green were a powerless imitator, if he wrote only useless parodies of Edgar Allan Poe, if only it would be an unnecessary insult to compare his works with the work of his wonderful prototype... Green - an outstanding figure in our fiction, the fact that he is little appreciated is rooted to a certain extent in his shortcomings, but his merits play a much more significant role ... Green is still not an imitator of Edgar Allan Poe, not an adopter of a stencil, not even a stylist; he is more independent than many who write ordinary stories ... Green has no template at the core; ... Green would be Green if there were no Edgar Allan Poe.

Gradually, in the criticism of the 1910s, an opinion was formed about the writer as a "master of the plot", a stylist and a romantic. Therefore, in the following decades, the leitmotif of Green's research was the study of the writer's psychologism and the principles of his plot composition.

Criticism of the 1920s and 1930s

In the 1920s, after Green wrote his most significant works, interest in his prose reached its peak. Eduard Bagritsky wrote that " few Russian writers have so perfectly mastered the word in all its usefulness". Maxim Gorky spoke of Grin in the following way: “ useful storyteller, necessary visionary". Mayakovsky, on the contrary, was skeptical about Green's work: “The counter of the large Baku Worker store. In total, 47 books fit in ... Of the fit - 22 foreign ones ... Russian, and then Green.

In the 1930-1940s, attention to the work of A. Grin was complicated by the general ideologization of literary criticism. However, in the 1930s, articles about Grin by Marietta Shaginyan, Kornely Zelinsky, Konstantin Paustovsky, Caesar Wolpe, Mikhail Levidov, Mikhail Slonimsky, Ivan Sergievsky were published , Alexandra Roskina. According to Shaginyan, “Green’s misfortune and misfortune is that he developed and embodied his theme not on the material of living reality - then we would have before us the true romance of socialism, but on the material of the conditional world of a fairy tale, wholly included in the “associative system” capitalist relations.

Kornely Zelinsky's approach was different. Like Gornfeld, he compares the creative method of Greene and Poe. According to Zelinsky, A. Green is not just a dreamer, but a "militant dreamer." Speaking about the style of the writer, he comes to the following conclusion: In the eternal hunt for the melody of poetic fantasy, Green learned to weave such verbal networks, to operate with the word so freely, resiliently and subtly that his skill cannot but attract our working interest.". "Green in his fantastic novels creates such a play of artistic forms, where the content is also conveyed by the movement of verbal parts, the properties of a difficult style." "On Green's stories, one can trace the curious and gradual transformation of his style, in connection with the evolution from a realist to a science fiction writer, from Kuprin to ... Edgar Allan Poe."

Literary critic Ivan Sergievsky did not escape the traditional comparison of Green with the classics of the adventure genre in the West: “Green's novels and stories echo the works of the classic adventurous fantasy novel by Edgar Allan Poe and the best works of Joseph Conrad. However, Green does not have the power of thought, and there are no realistic features of these writers. It is much closer to an adventurous fantasy novel by contemporary decadent artists like, say, McOrlan. In the end, I. V. Sergievsky nevertheless comes to the conclusion that Alexander Green overcame "the adventurous canon of literature of bourgeois decadence."

But not all pre-war critics could fit Green into the usual scheme of socialist creativity. An ideologized approach to the writer in pre-war journalism was revealed with all its force in Vera Smirnova's article "A Ship Without a Flag". In her opinion, writers like Greene deserve to have their anti-Soviet essence presented with all obviousness, and that “the ship on which Greene and his team of outcasts sailed from the shores of their fatherland does not have any flag, he is on his way“ to nowhere."

Post-war criticism

Free discussion of Green's work was interrupted at the end of the forties at the time of the ideological struggle with representatives of the so-called cosmopolitanism. Fulfilling the installations of the new program of the CPSU (b) to tighten the country's ideological course and for the establishment of a new "Soviet patriotism", the Soviet writer V. M. Vazhdaev in the article " Preacher of cosmopolitanism" in the journal "New World" (1950) turned to the work of Alexander Grin. The entire article by Vazhdaev is an open and unequivocal call to fight against cosmopolitanism, which, according to Vazhdaev, was embodied by A.S. Green: , a writer who for many years was stubbornly praised by aesthetic criticism.

V. Vazhdaev further claimed that A. Green's numerous admirers are Konstantin Paustovsky, Sergei Bobrov, Boris Annibal, Mikh. Slonimsky, L. Borisov and others - exaggerated Green's work beyond all measure into a major literary phenomenon. Moreover, the Stalinist publicist saw some political background in the creation of Greenland. The apotheosis of Vazhdaev was expressed in the following statement: “A. Green was never a harmless "dreamer". He was a militant reactionary and cosmopolitan." “The skill of an artist is inextricably linked with his worldview, determined by him; innovation is possible only where there is a bold revolutionary thought, deep ideological commitment and devotion of the artist to his homeland and people. And the work of A. Green, according to Vazhdaev, did not meet the requirements of revolutionary innovation, since Green did not love his homeland, but he painted and poeticized the alien bourgeois world. Vazhdaev's rhetoric was repeated word for word in A. Tarasenkov's article "On National Traditions and Bourgeois Cosmopolitanism" in the Znamya magazine, which was published simultaneously with Vazhdaev's article.

After Stalin's death, Green's books were again in demand by readers. The ideological approach to Green gradually began to give way to a literary one. In 1955, in the book The Golden Rose, Konstantin Paustovsky assessed the significance of the story Scarlet Sails as follows: If Green died, leaving us only one of his poems in prose, Scarlet Sails, then this would be enough to put him in the ranks of wonderful writers who disturb the human heart with a call to perfection.».

The writer and literary critic Viktor Shklovsky, reflecting on Greene-romantic, wrote that Greene " led people, leading them away from the desire for ordinary philistine well-being. He taught them to be brave, truthful, believing in themselves, believing in Human».

Writer and critic Vladimir Amlinsky drew attention to Green's peculiar loneliness in the literary world of the Soviet Union. "In today's literary process, he is less noticeable than any of the Masters of his scale, in today's criticism (...) his name is mentioned in passing." Analyzing Green’s work in comparison with the work of M. Bulgakov, A. Platonov, K. Paustovsky, who are somewhat similar to Green, Amlinsky concludes: “Green’s failure lies in the extraordinary thickening of romanticism, which had the opposite effect, especially in early stories” .

Vadim Kovsky believes that " Green's prose often provokes "superficial enthusiasm" (…) However, more often than not, Green simply fools us around his finger, hiding under the guise of an adventure-adventure genre and the infallibility of an emotional impact a high artistic thought, a complex concept of personality, an extensive system of connections with the surrounding reality.». « Green is characterized by a highly poetic, all-penetrating lyricism vision of the world.. The “cognitive part”, the material specification of the description is contraindicated for such a vision,” he writes in the book “ The Romantic World of Alexander Grin».

Critic V. A. Revich (1929-1997) in his posthumously published essay "Unreal Reality" stated that those who accused Green of "escape from reality" were right in many respects - defiantly ignoring the surrounding imperial or Soviet realities was a deliberate challenge to the vices of this reality. Because Green has never been a retired novelist, " his world is a world of militant goodness, kindness and harmony. Unlike many noisy and presumptuous contemporaries, Green reads no worse today than at the time of the first publication. So, in his conditional plots there is something eternal».

Critic and writer Irina Vasyuchenko in the monograph " The life and work of Alexander Grin” writes that Green had not only numerous predecessors, but also heirs. Among them, she points to Vladimir Nabokov. In her opinion, Green's style of writing is close to the style of V. V. Nabokov's novel "Invitation to the Execution". Vasyuchenko also claims that Green managed to anticipate Mikhail Bulgakov's creative searches in the novel The Master and Margarita. On the similarity of Green's story " Fandango” and some episodes of Bulgakov’s novel were also noted by the literary critic Marietta Chudakova.

Contemporary writer Natalya Meteleva has published her own analysis of Green's work. The basis of Green's worldview is, in her opinion, a childish attitude to the world (infantility). The writer is distinguished naivety<…>eternal teenager with complete inability to be in the world, which he retained until the end of his life". “When they talk about the “romantic maximalism” of A.S. Green, they always forget for some reason that maximalism in adulthood is a sign of the infantile development of the personality.” Meteleva reproaches Green for an unfriendly attitude towards technical progress, calls the writer a “hippie petrel”, and sees in his books “the eternal dreams of a dependent about equalization” (“do good”: have you noticed at whose expense this good is done?).

Green expert Natalya Orishchuk points out that the term is more applicable to Green neo-romanticism than conventional romanticism. She dwells in detail on the process of "Sovietization" of Green's work in the 1960s - the posthumous insertion of the writer's initially apolitical work into the context of socialist realism art. In her opinion, the works of Green became the object of very intensive indoctrination. The resulting Soviet stereotype of Green's perception has become a unique cultural phenomenon - the "Green sign". "Products of Soviet ideological myth-making", according to Orishchuk, are four myths:

1. Green's devotion to the October Revolution and the state political regime; 2. Green's transition to the bosom of socialist realism; 3. Interpretation of Green's early prose as a political declaration of the writer; 4. Green as an author of works for children.

As a result, in the 1960s, the phenomenon of a mass Soviet cult of Green was formed.

Bibliography

• 1906 : To Italy (the first legally published story by A.S. Green) Merit of Private Panteleev Elephant and Pug
• 1907 : Oranges Brick and music Favorite Marat On the stock exchange At leisure Underground Occasion
• 1908 : Hunchback Guest Eroshka Toy Captain Quarantine Swan Small committee Checkmate in three moves Punishment She Ruka Telegraph operator from Medyansky pine forest Third floor Hold and deck Murderer The man who cries
• 1909 : Barca on the Green Canal Airship Big lake dacha Nightmare Little conspiracy Maniac Lodging for the night Window in the woods Reno Island By marriage announcement Incident in Dog Street Paradise Cyclone in the Plain of Rains Navigator of the "Four Winds"
• 1910 : In the flood In the snow Return of the "Seagull" Duel Khons' estate The story of a murder Colony Lanfier Yakobson's raspberry Puppet On the island On the hillside Discovery Easter on the steamboat Powder magazine Strait of storms Birka's story The river Death Romelinka The mystery of the forest A box of soap
• 1911 : Forest Drama Moonlight Pillory Mnemonic System Atleia Words
• 1912 : The Hotel of Evening Lights (1912) The Life of Gnor A Winter Tale From the Memorable Book of the Detective Ksenia Turpanov The Puddle of the Bearded Pig The Passenger of the Pyzhikovs The Adventures of Ginch The Passage Yard A Strange Fate Story The Telluri Blue Cascade The Tragedy of the Suan Plateau Heavy Air Fourth for All
• 1913 : Adventurous Balcony Headless Horseman Dead Path Granka and His Son Long Journey Devil of Orange Waters Lives of Great People Zurbagan Shooter History of Tauren On the Hillside Naive Tussaletto New Circus Siurg Tribe Last Minutes of Ryabinin Seller of Happiness Sweet Poison of the City Taboo Mysterious Forest Silent Weekdays Three Adventures of Ehma Man with a person
• 1914 : Without an audience Forgotten Mystery of foreseen death Earth and water And spring will come for me How a strong man Red John fought the king Legends of war Dead for the living By a thread One of many A story ended thanks to a bullet A duel A penitent manuscript Incidents in Mrs. Cerise's apartment A rare photographic camera Conscience spoke The sufferer A strange incident at the masquerade Fate taken by the horns Three brothers Urban Graz receives guests The episode during the capture of Fort Cyclops
• 1915 : Lunatic aviator Shark Diamonds Armenian Tintos Attack Battalist Shuang Missing Air battle Blonde Bullfight Bayonet fighting Machine gun fighting Eternal bullet Alarm clock explosion Returned hell Magic screen Invention of Epitrim Haki-bey's harem Voice and sounds Two brothers Double Plereza Deal with white bird, or White bird and ruined church Wild mill Man's friend Iron bird Yellow city Beast of Rochefort Golden pond Game Toys Interesting photo Adventurer Captain Duke Swinging rock Dagger and mask Nightmare case Leal at home Flying doge Bear and German Bear hunt Naval battle American Mountains Above the Abyss Hitman Pik-Mik's Legacy Impenetrable Shell Night Walk Night Night and Day Dangerous Leap Original Spy Island Air Hunt Marbrun Hunt Hooligan Hunt Mine Hunter Dance of Death Leaders' Duel Death Note Sentinel Incident Kam-Boo Bird Way Fifteenth of July Scout Jealousy and sword Fateful place Woman's hand Knight Mallar Masha's wedding Serious prisoner Power of the word Blue top Killer word Alamber's death Calm soul Strange weapon Terrible parcel Terrible secret of the car The fate of the first platoon The mystery of the moonlit night There or there Three meetings Three bullets Murder in a fish shop Murder romance Asphyxiating gas Terrible vision The owner from Łódź Black flowers Black romance Black farm Wonderful failure
• 1916 : Scarlet Sails (fairy story) (publ. 1923) Little Wrestler's Great Happiness Merry Butterfly Around the World Pierre's Resurrection High Technique Behind Bars Capture the Banner Idiot How I Died on the Screen Labyrinth Lion's Strike Invincible Something from a Diary Fire and Water Poisoned Island Hermit of Grape Peak Vocation Romantic murder Blind Day Canet One hundred miles down the river Mysterious record The mystery of the house 41 Dance Tram sickness Dreamers Black diamond
• 1917 : Bourgeois spirit Return Rebellion Enemies The main culprit Wild rose Every millionaire Mistress of the bailiff Pendulum of spring Gloom Knife and pencil Fire water Orgy On foot to the revolution (feature) Peace To be continued by Rene Birth of thunder Circle of Doom Suicide Creation of Asper Merchants Invisible corpse Prisoner of the "Crosses" Apprentice sorcerer Fantastic providence The man from Durnovo's dacha Black car Masterpiece Esperanto
• 1918 : Atu it! Fighting the death of the ignorant Buk Vanya became angry with mankind The merry dead Forward and backward The hairdresser's fiction How I was king Carnival Club black ears Ships in Lissa (publ. 1922) The footman spat into the food It became easier The straggler platoon The crime of the Fallen Leaf Trivia Conversation Make a grandmother The power of the incomprehensible The old man walks in a circle Three candles
• 1919 : Magical Outrage Fighter
• 1921 : Vulture Competition in Lissa
• 1922 : White fire Visiting a friend Kanat Monte Cristo Gentle romance New Year's holiday of the father and little daughter Saryn on a kichka Typhoid dotted line
• 1923 : Riot on the ship "Alceste" Ingenious player Gladiators Voice and eye of Willow Whatever it was Horse head Order for the army Lost sun Traveler Uy-fu-ey Mermaids of the air Heart of the desert Loquacious brownie Murder in Kunst-Fisch
• 1924 : Legless White Ball Tramp and warden Jolly fellow traveler Gutt, Witt and Redott Siren's voice Boarded-up house Pied Piper On the cloudy shore Monkey By law Incidental income
• 1925 : Gold and miners Winner Gray car Fourteen feet Six matches
• 1926 : Marriage of August Esborn Snake Personal reception Nanny Glenaugh Other people's fault
• 1927 : Two Promises The Legend of Ferguson Daniel Horton's Weakness A Strange Evening of Fandango Four Guineas
• 1928 : Watercolor Social reflex of Held and Angotey
• 1929 : Mistletoe branch Thief in the forest Father's wrath Treason Opener of locks
• 1930 : Barrel of fresh water Green lamp The story of a hawk Silence
• 1932 : An autobiographical story
• 1933 : Velvet Drapery Commandant of the Port of Pari

Green A. Collected works, 1-6 vols. M., Pravda, 1965.

Green A. Collected works, 1-6 vols. M., Pravda, 1980. Republished in 1983.

Green A. Collected works, 1-5 vols. M.: Fiction, 1991.

Green A. From the unknown and the forgotten. - Literary heritage, vol. 74. M .: Nauka, 1965.

Green A. I am writing you the whole truth. Letters 1906-1932. - Koktebel, 2012, series: Images of the past., (erroneous).

Memory

Named after Alexander Green

• In 1985, the name "Grinevia" was given to the minor planet 2786, discovered on September 6, 1978 by the Soviet astronomer N. S. Chernykh.

• In 2000, on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the birth of A. S. Green, the Union of Writers of Russia, the administration of the cities of Kirov and Slobodsky established the annual Alexander Grin Russian Literary Prize for works for children and youth, imbued with the spirit of romance and hope.
• In 2012, the three-deck river passenger ship was named "Alexander Grin".

Museums

• In 1960, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, the writer's wife opened the Writer's House-Museum in Stary Krym.
• In 1970, a literary and memorial museum of Green was also created in Feodosia.
• On the centenary of his birth, in 1980, the Alexander Grin Museum was opened in the city of Kirov.
• In 2010, the Museum of Romance of Alexander Grin was created in the city of Slobodskaya.

Green Readings and Festivals

• The international scientific conference "Green's Readings" has been held in even years in the city of Feodosia since 1988 (first half of September).
• Green's readings in Kirov have been held every 5 years (sometimes more often) since 1975, on the writer's birthday (August 23).
• Since 1987, the festival of author's song "Greenland" has been held in the village of Basharovo near Kirov.
• "Green's Shore" - a Far Eastern festival of author's song and poetry near Nakhodka; has been held since 1994.
• The annual Greenland festival in Stary Krym, held since 2005 on the writer's birthday.

Streets

Alexander Grin Street exists in many Russian cities:

• Arkhangelsk,
• Gelendzhik,
• Moscow (since 1986),
• Naberezhnye Chelny,
• St. Petersburg,
• Sloboda,
• Old Crimea,
• Theodosius.

In Kirov there is an embankment named after the writer.

Libraries

Several major libraries are named after Greene:

• Kirov Regional Library for Children and Youth.
• Youth Library No. 16 in Moscow.
• City library in Slobodskoy.
• Library in Nizhny Novgorod.
• The central city library in the city of Feodosia.

Other

• There is a Gymnasium named after Alexander Grin in Kirov.
• In 1986, a memorial plaque (architect V. B. Bukhaev) with the text: “ The well-known Soviet writer Alexander Grin lived and worked in this house in 1921-1922.". The board should be located at 11 Pestel Street (in the early 1920s it was called “Dekabrist Pestel Street”), but for more than 30 years the board has been hanging at a different address.
• In 2000, a bronze bust of the writer was installed on the Green Embankment in Kirov. (Sculptors Kotsienko K.I. and Bondarev V.A.)
• There is a tradition in St. Petersburg when at night a sailing ship with scarlet sails enters the mouth of the Neva for the graduation ball of Russian schoolchildren. See Scarlet Sails (holiday of graduates).
• In 1987, in the town of Chusovoy (where Grin lived for some time in his youth) in an ethnographic park, on the initiative of Leonard Postnikov, local sculptor Viktor Bokarev created a project for a monument to Alexander Grin, and a year later Radik Mustafin, a Permian, carved the image of the writer from a single piece of granite. This monument is one of a kind, since there are no longer full-length monuments to Alexander Grin. Now the monument stands right in the waters of the Arkhipovka River. According to the established tradition, newlyweds often come to him. Next to Green sway on the waves of his " Scarlet Sails».
• In 2014, Green Boulevard was named after the writer in Saint Petersburg.

Residential addresses

House-Museum of A.S. Green, Kirov. It is located on the site of the house where the future writer spent his childhood in 1888-1894. The dilapidated house was demolished in 1902, the new building was built in 1905.

Vyatka province

• 1880-1881 - Slobodskoy.
• 1881-1888 - Vyatka, in the building of the Vyatka provincial zemstvo council.
• 1888-1894 - Vyatka, st. Nikitskaya (now Volodarsky street, 44).
• 1894-1896 - Vyatka, st. Preobrazhenskaya, 17.

Petrograd-Leningrad

• 1913-1914 - Zagorodny avenue, 10
• 1914-1916 - Pushkinskaya street, 1:
• 1920 - May 1921 - House of Arts (DISK) - Nevsky Prospekt (then called: Prospect of the 25th October), 15 ("Chicherin's House").
• May 1921 - February 1922 - Zaremba apartment house - Panteleimonovskaya street (Pestel street since 1923), 11.
• 1922-1924 - tenement house - 8th Rozhdestvenskaya (Soviet since 1923) street, 23.

Odessa

• st. Lanzheronovskaya, 2.

Feodosia

• Gallery, 10.

Screen adaptations

• 1958 - Watercolor
• 1961 - Scarlet Sails, dir. A. L. Ptushko
• 1967 - Running on the waves, dir. P. G. Lyubimov
• 1968 - Knight of Dreams, dir. V. Derbenev, Moldova-film, Lenfilm, pseudo-biographical ballad about the youth of A. Green
• 1969 - Colony Lanfier
• 1972 - Morgiana, Juraj Hertz
• 1976 - The Redeemer (a film by the Yugoslav-Croatian director Krsto Papich, based on the story "The Pied Piper")
• 1982 - Assol, television film-play directed by B. P. Stepantsev
• 1983 - Man from the Green Country (teleplay)
• 1984 - Shining World
• 1984 - Life and Books of Alexander Grin (teleplay)
• 1986 - Golden chain
• 1988 - Mr. Designer
• 1988 - "Father's Wrath" (short film, dir. I. Morozov)
• 1990 - One hundred miles on the river
• 1992 - Road to nowhere
• 1992 - Pied Piper (short film, dir. Yuri Pokrovsky)
• 1994 - "Angothea" (short film, dir. Elena Malikova)
• 1995 - Gelly and Knock
• 2003 - Infection
• 2007 - Running on the waves
• 2010 - The True Story of Scarlet Sails
• 2010 - Man from the unfulfilled (documentary film by V. Nedoshivin about A. Green)

The real name of Alexander Stepanovich Grin, a Russian Soviet prose writer of Polish origin, who created his works in line with romantic realism, is Grinevsky. His name is associated, first of all, with the story "Scarlet Sails".

He was born in the Vyatka province, the city of Slobodskaya on August 23 (August 11, O.S.), 1880. A tendency to change places, daydreaming, supported by a love of books about foreign lands and travels, he already had childhood years, he did not once attempted to run away from home. In 1896, his studies at the four-year Vyatka city school ended, and Alexander left for Odessa, where he began a six-year period of vagrancy.

Having settled on a ship, at first he wanted to realize his old dream of becoming a navigator, but he soon lost interest in it. A fisherman, a loader, a digger, a lumberjack, a gold digger and even a sword swallower - Alexander Grinevsky tried on all these professions, but he could not get rid of the most severe need, which in 1902 forced him to enlist in the army as a volunteer.

His service lasted 9 months, of which a third he spent in a punishment cell, and ended in desertion. At this time, his rapprochement with the Socialist-Revolutionaries takes place, who involve him in propaganda work. The agitation of sailors in Sevastopol ended for Green in 1903 with his arrest, and an unsuccessful attempt to escape turned into two years in a maximum security prison. However, he continued to engage in propaganda work, and in 1905 he was to be exiled to Siberia for 10 years, and only an amnesty helped to avoid such an unenviable fate.

In 1906, Alexander Grin's first story, "To Italy", was published, and the Merit of Private Panteleev and The Elephant and Pug, which followed it in the same year, were confiscated right at the printing house and burned. Their author, who was at that time in St. Petersburg, was arrested and exiled to the Tobolsk province, but the disgraced novice writer managed to quickly escape from the place of exile with other people's documents. In 1907, the story “The Case” was published, notable for the fact that for the first time in his creative biography, the author signed with the pseudonym A.S. Green. The following year, the first collection of short stories, The Cap of Invisibility, was published, which did not go unnoticed.

In 1910, Grin was sent into exile for the second time - this time for two years in the Arkhangelsk province. Upon returning home, Green actively writes and publishes, his stories, novellas, satirical miniatures, poems, poems are published in 60 editions. Until October 1917, Green published about 350 works. During this period, the romantic orientation of his writings is formed, which is in conflict with the harsh reality.

The February revolution gave rise to hopes for a change for the better, but they were dispelled with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks. Their actions further disappointed Green in the surrounding reality, he began to create his own world with renewed vigor. Today it is difficult to imagine that the famous story “Scarlet Sails”, beloved by all romantics, was born in Petrograd, engulfed in revolutionary transformations (it was published in 1923). The heroes of the works and the fictional cities of Green did not fit well into Soviet literature, filled with the pathos of building socialism - along with their author. His writings were published less and less and were increasingly criticized.

In 1924, A.S. Green "The Shining World", and in the same year he moved to Feodosia. Suffering from tuberculosis and poverty, he continues to write, and new stories come out from under his pen, the novels The Golden Chain (1925), The Wave Runner (1928), Jesse and Morgiana (1929), in 1930 . saw the light of the novel "The Road to Nowhere", permeated with the tragic worldview of the sick and misunderstood artist. The last place of residence in Green's biography was the city of Stary Krym, where he moved in 1930 and died on July 8, 1932.

Alexander Stepanovich Green was born on August 11 (23), 1880, in the city of Slobodskaya, Vyatka province. His father, S. Grinevsky, a Polish gentry, was a participant in the January Uprising, for which he was exiled to the Tomsk province.

The home education of the future writer was not consistent. Causeless caresses were abruptly replaced by severe punishments. Sometimes the child was left to himself.

In 1889, Sasha entered the preparatory class of the local real school. There the nickname “Green” was “born”, which later became his literary pseudonym.

Alexander studied badly, and, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, he was "an inveterate hooligan."

When the young man was fifteen years old, his mother died of tuberculosis. Having married a second time, the father moved away from his son, and young Green was forced to start an independent life.

The beginning of the creative path

In 1906-1908. in the life of A. Green came a turning point. In the summer of 1906, two stories came out from his pen, which were published in the fall of that year. The genre of early stories was defined as "propaganda pamphlet".

They were dedicated to the soldiers of the tsarist army, who, after the revolution of 1905, often staged bloody punitive raids.

The novice writer received a fee, but the entire circulation was destroyed.

In early 1908, Green published his first collection. Most of the collection was devoted to the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

In 1910, the writer released a second collection. Most of his stories were written in the genre of realism. Having shown himself as a promising writer, he met M. Kuzmin, V. Bryusov, L. Andreev, A. Tolstoy. He became closest of all with A. I. Kuprin.

Mostly the writer published in the "small" press. His stories were published in Birzhevye Vedomosti, Niva, Rodina. Sometimes he published in the "Modern World" and "Russian Thought".

In 1914, Alexander Grin began to collaborate with the New Satyricon magazine. This magazine published his collection "The Incident on Dog Street".

After the outbreak of the First World War, another turning point was outlined in the writer's work. His stories began to take on an anti-war character.

Getting acquainted with the content of a short biography of Alexander Grin, you should know that he had a rather complicated relationship with the Soviet authorities. Condemning the Red Terror, he was sincerely perplexed, not understanding how the apologists of the new government could destroy violence with even greater violence. He expressed this idea more than once in the New Satyricon.

As a result, the magazine, like other opposition publications, was closed. This happened in 1918. Green was arrested and narrowly escaped execution.

Continuation of literary activity

In early 1920, Green began his first novel, The Shining World. After 1924, the work was printed in Leningrad. Most clearly, his literary talent manifested itself in the stories "Fandango", "The Pied Piper", "The Loquacious Brownie".

In 1926, the writer finished work on his main novel - "Running on the Waves". The work was published in 1928. With great difficulty, the "sunset" works of the outstanding writer, "The Road to Nowhere" and "Jesse and Morgiana" were also published.

Death

Alexander Grin passed away on July 8, 1932, in Stary Krym. The cause of death was stomach cancer. The writer was buried in the city cemetery. His grave is located on a site overlooking the sea so beloved by Green.

In 1934, Green's last collection of short stories, Fantastic Novels, was published.

Other biography options

• In his youth, Green was a desperate rebel. Relations with the royal authorities were very difficult for him. From the end of 1916 he hid from persecution in Finland. He returned to Russia only after the February Revolution.
• Becoming a famous writer, Green got rid of the need. But the money did not stay in his hands. The writer was a fan of card games and nightly revelry.
• In May 1932, the writer's wife, N. Green, received a transfer from the Writers' Union. The strange thing was that he was sent in the name of the "widow", although Alexander Stepanovich was still alive. According to some reports, this happened against the background of the writer's mischief. A few days before, he had sent a telegram saying "Green is dead send two hundred funerals".
• The writer's wife, Nina, was his muse. It was she who became the prototype of Assol from Scarlet Sails.
• A small planet was named after the writer. In Riga there is Alexander Grin street. But it was named after the full namesake of Alexander Stepanovich, who was also a writer.

GREEN (real name Grinevsky) Alexander Stepanovich(1880-1932), Russian writer.
In the romantic fiction novels Scarlet Sails (1923), Running on the Waves (1928), the novels The Shining World (1924), The Road to Nowhere (1930) and short stories, he expressed a humanistic belief in the high moral qualities of a person.
* * *
GREEN Alexander Stepanovich (real name Grinevsky), Russian writer.
House-Museum of A. Green
He spent his childhood and youth in Vyatka. His father, a Pole, was exiled to Siberia after participating in the Polish uprising of 1863-1864, where he became an assistant manager of a brewery, then worked as an accountant in a zemstvo hospital; mother was from the middle class, died when Green was 13 years old. There was no one to raise the boy, but his primary education was at home. He studied at the Alexander real school (humanitarian subjects were better), from which he was expelled for poetic satire on the teacher, then at the Vyatka city school (graduated in 1896). I took up reading early. He especially liked to read about travel related to the sea. His favorite authors were Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Alexandre Dumas, Daniel Defoe, Mine Reid, Robert Stevenson. Green's first youthful poetic experiments belong to this period. Being by nature a dreamer and a passionate lover of adventure, the future writer at the age of 16 left Vyatka for Odessa, where, wanting to become a sailor, he got a job as a sailor and sailed to Egypt. Then he tried many other professions, was a scribe, bath attendant, rafter, worked as a prospector in the Ural gold mines, in a fishing artel, but he also had to wander. In 1901, partly at the request of his father, he signed up as a soldier in the 213th Orovaisky reserve battalion (Penza), from where in 1902, having become close to the Social Revolutionaries, he deserted. As a member of the underground Social Revolutionary organization, he was engaged in propaganda work in Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Tambov, Kyiv, Odessa, Sevastopol. In the program of the Social Revolutionaries, Green was attracted by the lack of strict party discipline, the promise of universal happiness after the revolution. In November 1903, he was arrested for the first time for this activity, twice in 1907 and 1910 he was exiled.
In 1906, his first story "The Merit of Private Panteleev" and the book "Elephant and Pug" appeared, which were propaganda in nature (circulations were seized by censorship and destroyed). A cycle of published works about revolutionary Russia opened with the story "To Italy" (1906). Signature A. Green was first put under the story "The Case" (1907). In 1908, the collection The Hat of Invisibility was published, which reflected the writer's already rethought attitude towards the Socialist-Revolutionaries, a clear rejection of some of their ideological positions. During exile in 1910 in the Arkhangelsk province, Green wrote a number of "northern" stories ("Ksenia Turpanova", "Winter's Tale"), the heroes of which, tormented by boredom, seek to change their lives, fill it with meaning. Greene's early stories are written in the spirit of the realist literature of the 1900s, the writer was only trying to find his way in literature. Green's life, "meager" for warmth and love, the craving for adventure, strengthened his desire for the unknown, the ideal. Green was increasingly attracted to a hero breaking out of the established way of life of the majority of the townsfolk ("She", 1908), the idea of ​​​​creating a strong romantic hero ("Airship", 1909).
In 1909, the novel "Reno Island" was published - Green's first truly romantic work. The sailor Tart, having found himself on an exotic island and imbued with its nature, did not want to return to the ship to his crew, as he decided to preserve the freedom he had gained on the island. But loneliness led Tart to death. Thematically close to "Reno Island" are works whose heroes are bright but lonely personalities: "Colony Lanfier" (1910), "The Tragedy of the Suan Plateau" (1912), "The Blue Telluri Cascade" (1912), "Zurbagan Shooter" (1913) , "Captain Duke" (1915), "Beat Boy Bringing Happiness" (1918). Gradually, Green's characters changed, not locking themselves into their own world.
In 1910, Grin left the Socialist-Revolutionary organization, in 1912 he was accepted by the literary environment, becoming close to A. I. Kuprin, A. I. Svirsky. He began to collaborate in periodicals, until 1917 he published more than 350 stories, poems, novels. During the First World War, a long crisis occurred in the writer's work, caused by the author's internal fluctuations. Green perceived the era of his time as anti-aesthetic (“A Tale Ended Thanks to a Bullet”, 1914). In the stories of 1914-1916, caused by the influence of the aesthetics of Edgar Allan Poe, the writer's attraction to the "mysterious" was felt ("Returned Hell", 1915). In 1916, the writer tried to evaluate his own work and, on the basis of this assessment, express his attitude to art. Art for Greene became the basis of personal existence, a departure into a different, more perfect reality, he considered himself a symbolist. At the end of 1916, for a daring review of the Tsar, Green was forced to leave Russia and settle in Finland. Having learned about the February Revolution, he returned to Petrograd along the sleepers (essay "Walking to the Revolution", 1917). He received the revolution enthusiastically, but these moods turned out to be fleeting. Already in the stories "Uprising" (1917), "The Birth of Thunder" (1917), "Pendulum of the Soul" (1917), the writer feels a sense of rejection of the new reality. The pamphlet “The Blister, or the Good Papa” is devoted to reflections on socialism - in it Green writes with irritation that the revolution is not going as “beautifully” as expected. In 1919 he was published only in the journal Flame, edited by A. V. Lunacharsky. Here his poetic story "The Thrush and the Lark Factory" was published, filled with faith in beauty, with which Green began his life and career. In the fall of 1919, the writer was mobilized as a private in the Red Army. During this period, the idea was born and the first "draft" of the extravaganza story "Scarlet Sails" (1921), which became one of Green's most famous works, appeared. The heroes of the story - Assol and Gray - have a rare gift of a "different" vision of the world, their exclusivity is that they can do miracles on their own. After the hardest trials of the Civil War, Green, despite the need, continued to work. In 1923, the novel Shining World (1923) appeared, in which the tragic death of the protagonist Druda is the result of the author's inner doubts about the possibility of achieving the ideal.
In 1925, the writer released the novel The Golden Chain, in 1928 - "Running on the Waves" - one of the most complex and iconic. In "Running on the Waves" the motif of the illusory nature of any dream sounded again. Only a creative person, according to the author, can fully experience the subtle nature of this illusion.
Since the mid-1920s, Green has been published less and less, mainly in obscure editions. From 1924 he lived in Feodosia, in 1930 he moved to Stary Krym. Financial trouble, a serious illness broke the writer. His last novel with the symbolic title The Road to Nowhere (1930) is filled with a tragic sense of hopelessness. Two months after the publication of the novel, Green died. In the late 1930s several critical articles appeared (K. Zelinsky, M. Shaginyan, K. Paustovsky), in which the writer's talent and his unique vision of the world were finally recognized. But Green's work received universal recognition only in the 1960s.
Some of Green's works ("Scarlet Sails", "Running on the Waves", etc.) were successfully filmed.
The real surrounding life rejected Green's world along with its creator. Critical remarks about the uselessness of the writer appeared more and more often, the myth of the "foreigner in Russian literature" was created, Green was printed less and less. The writer, ill with tuberculosis, left in 1924 for Feodosia, where he was in dire need, and in 1930 he moved to the village of Stary Krym, where he died on July 8, 1932.