Russian Personalities

People well-known in art, sport, film, fashion

Category Archive: Art and literature

Sergei Mikhalkov – great writer

Sergei Mikhalkov – great writer

Sergei Mikhalkov – great writer


Sergei Mikhalkov, one of the most popular children’s writers in the USSR, was born in 1913. He spent his school years in Pyatigorsk, in the Caucasus. And in 1930 he moved to Moscow, where he studied at the Gorky Literary Institute. In 1935 his first verses for children were published, and they had been followed by many other verses, fables and plays for children.
He began to write verses early in his life. Along with his penknife and sling-shot, cherished carefully in a casket, there was a rough notebook containing some verses, written out without a single mistake.
Among the verses was one fable— it was called Culture, and the point of it was that “it is better to help people in deeds, not merely in words”. He was ten at the time.
One day he wrote a tale in verse. He copied it out in block capitals and set off for a publisher’s. The boy went into a place that smelt thrillingly of printer’s ink. They led him to “the very top man”. A tiny old man in a long belted shirt received him as though he was a real author. When he said goodbye, he held out three roubles. That was his first advance! A week later he was holding his reply in hands trembling with excitement. Printed on a stock form, it briefly rejected his story about a bear as unsuitable for publication.
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Alexander Tvardovsky – Soviet poet

Alexander Tvardovsky – Soviet poet

Alexander Tvardovsky – Soviet poet


Alexander Tvardovsky was born in 1910, in the Smolensk Region, on the little farm of Stolpovo, as the tiny scrap of land acquired by his father was called. In no sense was possession of that piece of land a thing to be envied. But for his father, who had worked for years as a blacksmith to earn enough to put down the deposit required by the bank, that land was precious, even sacred. And from the very first he taught children to love and respect it.
Alexander’s father was a literate man and even a well-read one by village standards. Books were no rarity in their house, and in the winter whole evenings were given over to reading aloud.
The boy started writing verses before he could properly read and write. There was no metre, no rhyme, nothing of poetry at all, but he distinctly recalled that he had a fervent desire, so passionate that his heart nearly burst, to achieve all that—metre, and rhyme, and music—a desire to give birth to them, and without delay.
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Joseph Dik – Soviet writer

Joseph Dik – Soviet writer

Joseph Dik – Soviet writer


In the Soviet years Joseph Dik was called one of the most prominent representatives of Russian literature. He was friends with Kassil, Paustovsky, Tvardovsky, Trifonov, enjoyed wild success with women. And no one noticed that the writer did not have both hands and an eye.
He was born on August 20, 1922 in Moscow, in the family of Ion Dichesku (Ivan Dik), one of the founders of the Romanian Communist Party. From morning until late evening, his father was at work, but still found time to go to the theater with his son, taught him how to shoot with a small-caliber rifle, and bought books for him. And when at the age of 10 the boy tried to write poetry, the father explained to him what a rhythm was and how to choose rhymes.
Childhood ended in 1937. Joseph’s parents were arrested as “enemies of the people”, and he and his younger sister were sent to the Rybinsk orphanage.
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Kozma Prutkov – Fruits of Deliberation

Kozma Prutkov – Fruits of Deliberation

Kozma Prutkov – Fruits of Deliberation


Kozma Prutkov is a unique phenomenon not only for Russian, but also for world literature. There are fictional heroes and people erect monuments, open museums in the houses where they “lived”. But none of them had their own biography, collected works, critics of their work and followers. Kozma Prutkov’s aphorisms were published in such well-known publications of the 19th century as Sovremennik, Iskra, and Amusement. Many famous writers of that time believed that this was a real person. This character appeared thanks to the joint prank of Alexei, Vladimir and Alexander Zhemchuzhnikov and Count Alexei Tolstoy. The Zhemchuzhnikov brothers came from an old Russian family, in which there were governors and senators. Alexey, Alexander and Vladimir were poets, and their brother Leo was a famous artist and engraver. Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy was a famous Russian writer, playwright and poet.
Kozma Prutkov, whose quotes and aphorisms were loved by many of their contemporaries, appeared due to the failure of the play, co-written by Tolstoy and Alexei Zhemchuzhnikov. Nicholas I, who was present at the performance, was dissatisfied, the play was removed from the repertoire, and the brothers began to write parodies.
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Alexander Belyaev – great writer

Alexander Belyaev – great writer

Alexander Belyaev – great writer


Alexander Belyaev was born in 1884 into the family of a priest. The little boy was very curious. He made parachutes from sheets and jumped off the roofs of nearby houses, enthusiastically built a glider and in addition took photographs.
There were also mystical incidents. For example, in early youth, Belyaev made his brother’s head in clay. The head was not very similar, and he threw it into the water. And then it turned out that it was at that moment that his brother had drowned. All his life, Belyaev considered himself to be the unwitting culprit of the tragedy. To tell the truth, he almost became an invalid in childhood. Sasha injured the eye seriously, which led to partial vision loss. Parents sent their son to study at the seminary, which he graduated in 1901.
But he refused to become a priest, because instead of the Holy Scripture he loved to read the novels of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Alexander dreamed of faraway countries, but entered the law department. After the death of his father, he had to support the family. Belyaev gave lessons, drew scenery for the theater, played the violin in a circus orchestra.
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Ivan Bunin and his women

Ivan Bunin and his women

Ivan Bunin and his women


Only in old age, when life is lived, you really begin to appreciate the joys, given by fate, as well as bitterness of loss. (Ivan Bunin)

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born at dawn on October 10 (22), 1870 in the small Russian town of Yelets. It was an unusual autumn morning, like an omen, which opened the door to the life full of fame, love, despair and loneliness. Life on the edge: happiness and bitterness, love and hate, loyalty and betrayal, recognition in life and humiliating poverty at the end of the path. His muses were women, who gave him rapture, and troubles, and disappointments, and immeasurable love.
Four women were in the life of the great Russian writer, they left a huge trace in his soul, they tormented his heart, inspired, awakened the talent and desire to create.
Varvara Pashchenko was the first. Bunin wanted to marry her in 1891, at the age of twenty. Varvara worked as a proofreader in the Orlovsky Vestnik. She was older and more experienced, but, being afraid of her father, a well-known doctor in the city, she refused to marry Bunin. Although she promised that she would continue to live with him as a wife. By the way, she secretly met with the rich landowner Arseniy Bibikov, whom she married later.
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Alexander Griboyedov and Nino Chavchavadze

Alexander Griboyedov and Nino Chavchavadze

Alexander Griboyedov and Nino Chavchavadze


Nino Chavchavadze was called “the black rose of Tiflis”. This woman was mourning for 28 years after the death of her husband – Russian poet, diplomat and composer Alexander Griboyedov, the author of the immortal Woe from Wit.
The diplomat, writer and composer Alexander Griboyedov was 17 years older than Nino Chavchavadze. And he knew the girl from her childhood. Little Nino called the Russian diplomat Uncle Sandro. He often visited her father’s house. Alexander Chavchavadze was a Georgian poet and governor of several regions in Georgia. The friendship of two Alexanders was not accidental. Chavchavadze was one of the most educated people of his country and his time. Griboyedov showed himself as a unique personality.
In his youth, the future author of the play Woe from Wit studied at three faculties of the Moscow University. In addition, Griboyedov was an excellent musician: several works written by him, including two great waltzes, reached us.
Extraordinary abilities helped Alexander to become successful in his diplomatic career. In 1819, at the age of 24, Griboyedov liberated the Russian soldiers who were in Persian captivity. Since then he became a diplomat in Persia and quickly learned Persian.
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