Oles Honchar is a Ukrainian Soviet writer

After the collapse of the USSR, people began to look differently at their culture and literature, trying to figure out what works of the Soviet era were a masterpiece, and what was simply imposed by propaganda. Because of this, many remarkable Soviet writers were undeservedly forgotten. Among them is the author of popular novels of the sixties Oles Honchar.

early years

Was born the future writer Oles (Alexander Terentyevich) Potter in 1918 in with. Lomovka, the Dnepropetrovsk region. At birth bore the surname Bilichenko.

After the death of Tatyana's mother, the boy was barely three years old at the time, because of the difficult relationship with his father and his new wife, Frosya, the young Sasha moved to live with his grandfather and grandmother on the maternal line in the village of Sukha, which is often mistakenly considered the birthplace. Grandfather and grandmother almost replaced the boy's father and mother, and when they gave his grandson to school, they wrote him under his name - Gonchar.

When the boy grew up and went to school, his uncle Yakov Gavrilovich, who became director of the local plant, took up his education. Thanks to this post, he had more opportunities to support his nephew than his grandparents. Therefore, together with his uncle's family, the boy moved to the village. Horishki. Studying at a local school, he fell under the influence of the teacher of the Ukrainian language and literature. It was thanks to him that the future writer became interested in literature, and also received the pseudonym Oles. The fact is that the teacher was a fan of the creativity of the Ukrainian poet Alexander Olesya and it was passed on to his pupil. After many years in his novel "Cathedral", the writer will create a character decommissioned from his beloved teacher.

Due to the crossing of uncle Yakov, Alexander finished the seven-year-old in the village of Breusovka. During this period, he tries to write his own works and articles, thanks to this after finishing school the guy found a job in the editorial office of the regional newspaper, and afterwards - in the regional newspaper. In parallel with the work, Gonchar studied at the journalistic technical school of the city of Kharkov. After graduation, Alexander began to work as a teacher in the village of Manuilovka. In the same period, he begins to publish his first stories in all-Ukrainian publications Pioneeria, Literaturnaya Gazeta, Komsomolets Ukrainy and others.

In 1938, Oles Honchar became a student of the philological faculty of Kharkov University. Here he continued to write short stories and novels, but the joy of studying did not last long. The Great Patriotic War began and Oles, interrupting his studies, volunteered for the front.

During the war, Gonchar was not up to literary activity, although sometimes he wrote poetry, and also made notes that he later used in his stories and novels about the war, in particular in the trilogy "The Bearers."

Having won almost five years, having been in captivity and having earned three medals for courage and one Order of the Red Star, in 1945 the writer returned home. During the war, his father and two half-brothers were killed, as well as many other friends and acquaintances. However, the writer himself returned from the front unharmed. His "luck" he always explained by the fact that his grandmother, being a deeply religious woman, prayed for her grandson. Gonchar himself was baptized as a child and also believed in God, in addition, he had great respect for the ancient temples and was an ardent opponent of their destruction or turning into ancillary facilities. Later, he will raise this topic in his most famous novel, The Cathedral.

The beginning of literary activity

Returning from the war, Oles Gonchar moves to Dnepropetrovsk and, having entered the local university, continues his war-interrupted training. In parallel, on the basis of still fresh memories and military notes, he writes and publishes several novels, and then takes up a larger work - writes his debut novel about the war of the Alps (the first part of the trilogy "The Bearers"), which was published in 1946 in one From republican literary journals. The publication of the first novel by Gonchar changed his life. He forced the literary luminaries of that time to pay attention to the new talent in Russian literature. So, the recognized master of Ukrainian Soviet literature, Yuri Yanovsky, highly appreciated the work of the young writer and decided to take him under his care. Therefore, after the success of the Alps, he invites Gonchar to move to Kiev, enter post-graduate studies, and continue his work on new novels.

Confession

In the next two years, Oles Gonchar publishes the second and third novels from the cycle "Bearers": "Blue Danube" and "Golden Prague", and also does not forget about small prose. The "Star Bearer" trilogy brings the author a tremendous popularity not only in the Ukrainian SSR, but throughout the country. For this cycle, the writer will receive two Stalin Prizes and becomes successful and recognized, he is read with pleasure by both ordinary people and the intelligentsia.

However, the sudden glory did not spoil Gonchar, despite the popularity, he continues to write actively. True, after the trilogy, the author mainly turns to small prose and publishes a story about military life.

In the fifties, according to the story of Gonchar "Let the light burn," the feature film "The Girl from the Lighthouse" is filmed, the next year one more of his novels is shot "Partisan spark".

During the same period Oles Honchar worked on the dilogy on the revolutionary events in the south of Ukraine. It included novels "Tavria" and "Pereskop." Unfortunately, they did not become as popular as the "Bearers" and novels of the writer. However, in these novels, the author gradually begins to move away from military themes and to be more interested in the theme of the peaceful life of ordinary people. Perhaps, because of the attempt to change the subject of creativity, the digology was not so successful as the early novels. Despite the rather cold reviews, in 1959, "Tavria" was screened, and based on the book was created the same name ballet production for the music of Vladimir Nakhabin.

In addition to literary activity, in the fifties Gonchar engaged in publicism, as well as travels around the world. The apogee of this decade for him is the election of the chairman of the Writers' Union of Ukraine, as well as the secretary of the Union of Writers of the USSR.

Sixties

In the next decade Oles Honchar concentrates his attention on peaceful life and its peculiarities. With the power of his grand talent, the writer manages to notice the details and create vivid, romantic images against the backdrop of everyday everyday routine. Therefore, Gonchar's novels during this period are no less successful than his debut trilogy.

In 1960, the writer publishes the novel "Man and Weapons", which demonstrates the new facets of the author's talent. For this novel Gonchar becomes the first laureate of the Republican Prize of Ukraine named after Taras Shevchenko. Although this work was a masterpiece and a new milestone in the writer's work, outside the circle of the Ukrainian literary elite, it was not so appreciated and popular as other works of Gonchar. However, the author himself was quite close to the subject of "Man and weapons", so in ten years he will return to it in the novel-continuation "Cyclone". The subject of this work in many respects echoes the work of the favorite teacher of the writer, Yuri Yanovsky.

Another significant creation of Gonchar in the sixties was the novel in novels "Tronka". His success helped the writer not only to become famous again for the whole of the USSR, but also to win the Lenin Prize. It is noteworthy that all the money applied to this award, Oles voluntarily donated to the development of libraries. A few years later the novel was filmed.

Roman Oles Honchar's "Cathedral" and the scandal surrounding him

Once again having achieved success, the author decided to write the novel "Cathedral."

On the wave of a thaw and the rethinking of values vaccinated from childhood, the author tried to write about a topic that was of interest to him for a long time - about spirituality. Despite his successful career, Gonchar admitted that he was always a believer who valued and respected Christian traditions and beliefs. After the war, when the writer lived near Dnepropetrovsk, on his street was the Trinity Cathedral, built in the times of the Cossacks according to the old technique, without the use of nails. Being not only a spiritual symbol, but also an architectural monument, this cathedral was of great importance for local residents. And when, because of the intrigues of the local authorities, they wanted to deprive him of the title of historical sight and carry him down, the people opposed. This story touched the writer, and he wrote about this novel, published in 1968 in the journal "Fatherland". Readers, critics and recognized Ukrainian Soviet writers highly appreciated this work. But a close friend of Brezhnev, the first secretary of the regional committee of Vatchenko, after reading the novel, suspected that his main negative character was written off from him. Therefore, he used his connections and secured the ban on further publication of the novel, the ban on its translation into Russian, and also any mention of it in the press. It did not help either the intercession of the literary luminaries, nor the open letter to the newspaper Pravda.

The ardent prohibition of the novel "Cathedral" meanwhile became a kind of catalyst, forcing many figures of the literature of the USSR to fight against totalitarianism in literature. In addition, the scandal surrounding this novel, glorified the author throughout the USSR. To date, this book is the most famous work of the writer, although not the strongest.

The late period of creativity

Despite the bitter experience with the "Cathedral", Oles Honchar did not give up and continued to write. To his happiness, only his "brainchild" touched the negative attitude of the authorities, while the writer himself remained unharmed. His later works continued to be published, in the next twenty years, three more of his works were screened. After the "Cathedral" Gonchar wrote four more novels, several novels, issued one collection of short stories "Far bonfires" and a book of verses of the war years "Front verses." In addition, during these years the writer becomes an active participant in the dissident movement in Ukraine and deals with public issues. In 1987, the writer initiated the creation of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. In 1990, he left the Communist Party.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the elderly author was actively engaged in political and public activities, writing was much less. In those years he published a book of essays, where he expressed his opinion about the future of his homeland - "What we live. On the path of Ukrainian revival ".

In 1995, Oles Honchar was gone. Six years later a monument to Gonchar was opened in Kiev. In 2005 he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. In honor of the writer streets in six large cities of Ukraine, one park, four libraries, a university and several schools are named. The name of Oles Honchar is three literary prizes, as well as four state academic scholarships. In addition, in with. Dry, where he spent his early childhood writer, is his museum.

Oles Honchar is a writer of great talent, his contribution to the literature of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other countries is truly invaluable. However, due to changes in public life, many of his works are no longer as relevant as at the time of their publication. In any case, to read the books of this author is not only to get acquainted with the life of ordinary people during the Great Patriotic War, as well as the post-war period, but also in order to simply enjoy the writer's unsurpassed talent.