Leonid Soloviev - author of "The Tale of Khoja Nasreddin"

For the reading person, Leonid Soloviev is primarily the author of two novellas about Khoja Nasreddin. This hero came from the oral folklore of the peoples of the East and Central Asia and taught to do good, to treat life with wisdom and optimism.

Only the writer himself was able to live in a country that did not appreciate the uniqueness of an individual person, at a time when blind faith was needed more than the mind and talent.

Born in Syria, grew up in Central Asia

He was born in 1906 in a family of Russian intellectuals, but in a distant and hot Syria, in the city of Tripoli (today Lebanon). Parents worked in the Middle East through the missionary Orthodox Palestine Society, and upon their return to Russia they began to teach in the schools of the Volga region. After the revolution, Leonid Soloviev, whose biography and work were closely associated with the culture of the East, along with his family found themselves in Central Asia, in Kokand.

Child sensitivity allowed the future writer to absorb the authentic values of oral folk art of Central Asian peoples, imbued with its beauty and color. After graduation from the school in 1922, impressions from travel to Turkestan, from the study of folklore demanded an exit, and Leonid Solovyov tries himself in journalism - in the newspaper Turkestanskaya Pravda.

The first literary experience

In 1927 he participated in a literary contest, announced by the magazine "World of Adventures", and received a second prize. The belief in the correctness of the chosen path grows stronger - in 1930 Leonid Solovyov entered the Institute of Cinematography at the scenario faculty and two years later he graduated from it.

The ease of writing talent and Soloviev's innate optimism are visible in the case of an amusing hoax. He presented for the collection of folk songs and legends about V. I. Lenin written by himself texts, giving them for collected in the course of folklore studies. Fortunately, this did not entail serious consequences, and specially sent to the Turkestan expedition were able to find the "originals" of these creations.

The first story about Khoja Nasreddin

According to Solovyov's script, a film is being staged, his works are noted by critics and venerable masters, among whom was a living classic - Maxim Gorky, and the publication in 1940 of the book "Troubles of Calm" makes him very popular among readers. This amazing workshop in form and fascinating in content story about the legendary joker and sage, the national patron has become a vivid expression of the experience and memories that Leonid Soloviev accumulated over the years lived in the East.

The beginning of the war did not allow to continue work on "Khoja Nasreddin", the writer goes to serve as a military correspondent for the newspaper "Red Fleet". The collections of his military stories are published, the film "Ivan Nikulin - Russian Sailor" is being shot. There are screen versions and his main book, but when the film about the adventures of a cheerful sage dervish twisted around the country, the script writer was already sitting in the camp on charges of preparing an attempt on the country's top leaders.

The Enchanted Prince

It is said that Leonid Soloviev, a writer who created one of the most optimistic literary images, in his life looked little like his hero. An uneasy character, susceptibility to a certain weakness accompanying the Russian people in both grief and glory, brought much suffering to himself and to his close ones.

Against adversity, he knew one means - creativity, and the second part of the dilogy about Khoja Nasreddin he wrote in the camp. Among the administration of the Gulag there were fans of his story about a merry hodge. He was not sent on a distant stage and allowed to write in his spare time. But the situation could not but tell: in the second part of Nasreddin's adventures there is already a slightly different intonation - pensive and elusively sad.

"Enchanted Prince" was adopted very well, "The Story of Khoja Nasreddin" was eventually translated into many languages and was often reprinted in the country. But the time spent in custody, the failure in his personal life have not passed without a trace. The psychological state and physical health were irretrievably undermined. After liberation and rehabilitation in 1954, the writer lived only 8 years. In 1962 he died in Leningrad.

In the history of Soviet literature of the Soviet era, many people who lived their lives in peace and prosperity, who received official awards and recognition, published ideologically verified volumes and considered themselves writers. But there were few such as Leonid Vasilyevich Solovyov - those who left books that are interesting only with the talent and imagination of the author, who will read after a very long time.

Solovyov Leonid Vasilyevich. Bibliography

Peru Solovyov owns such works:

• 1932 - "The nomad";
• 1934 - "The Tour of the Winner";
• 1935 - "The end of a half-station" (script);
• 1938 - "Sad and merry events in the life of Mikhail Ozerov" ("High Pressure");
• 1940 - "The disturber of calmness";

• 1943 - "The Great Exam", "Nasreddin in Bukhara" (script);
• 1943 - Ivan Nikulin - Russian Sailor (novel and script);
• 1944 - "Sevastopol stone", "I am Chernomorets" (script), "The Adventures of Nasreddin" (script);
• 1954 - "The Enchanted Prince";
• 1959 - "Overcoat" (script based on the novel by N. Gogol);
• 1960 - "Anathema" (script based on the story of the same name by A. Kuprin);
• 1963 - From the Book of Youth.