Veniamin Alexandrovich Kaverin: biography, list of books and interesting facts

87 years of this man's life have contained a whole era. Brought up in the traditions of classical literature, he tried to reflect in his books the heroes of a new type born in other historical conditions. On his main novel, several generations were brought up, absorbing from him not adherence to ideological postulates, but the truth of the ideals of friendship, steadfastness in achieving the goal and elementary decency, to which Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin himself remained faithful both in long literary work and in life.

"I think I was a capable boy ..."

He was the youngest child in a large family of military musician Alexander Abramovich Zilber, who served in the Omsk Infantry Regiment. Veniamin Alexandrovich Kaverin was born in the spring of 1902, when a large family lived in Pskov for more than five years. All six of Zilberov's children were gifted, reaching subsequently serious heights not only in music, but also in science. So, Alexander became a prominent composer and conductor, who subsequently took the pseudonym Ruchiev, Elena - musicologist, Lev - the founder of a whole scientific school of Soviet medical virology.

The children of Kapellmeister Zilber were largely responsible for the thoroughness of the intellectual and creative baggage for the future life of their mother, Anna Grigorievna. She was a pianist, a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, who had a good education and a broad view, which made her home a popular place for communication between the progressive youth of the provincial Pskov. Obviously, it was under her influence that the future writer quickly joined in reading.

Favorite writer - Stevenson

He became a true book-lover, absorbing in large quantities the literature of very different properties: the tales of Andersen and Perrot, the books of Dickens and Victor Hugo, the works of Russian classics, the adventure novels of Fenimore Cooper and Emar, the story of Sherlock Holmes and tabloid books about noble robbers and detectives. As Veniamin Alexandrovich Kaverin later recalled, he especially liked Robert Stephenson, who was struck by the ability to acquire attention without a trace, through "the power of cohesion of words that gives birth to the miracle of art."

In addition to the mother who paid great attention to the development of children, the big brother Leo was a great authority for the boy. A friend and classmate of Leo - Yury Tynyanov - later a famous literary critic and writer, the author of "Second Lieutenant Kizhe", "Kyukhli" and "Death of Wazir Mukhtar" became a man who had a great influence on the formation of the literary tastes of the future writer and instilled him with a real passion for literature. . Tynianov for a long time became a true friend for Kaverin. It is interesting that he later married Leo's sister and Veni-Elena, and Benjamin Alexandrovich Kaverin himself was later married to Lydia Nikolaevna's sister Tynyanov.

His universities

During his studies in the Pskov provincial grammar school, in which he spent 6 years, the only problem for Kaverin was mathematics. Since gymnasium times, he has been trying to write poetry, which was at that time commonplace for young men with a humanitarian mindset.

Kaverin's childhood ended in 1918 after the capture of Pskov by German troops, and he finished high school in Moscow. There he enters the university. Then he moves to the capital - Petrograd. There, through Tynyanov, he approaches many well-known writers - V. Shklovsky, E. Schwartz, Vs. Ivanov, etc. Kaverin dreams of studying literature, in particular versification. Veniamin Alexandrovich, whose biography eventually became an example of selfless service of Russian literature, received the first harsh lessons along the way. The most cruel in relation to his poetic creations was shown by Osip Mandelstam: "From such as you, poetry must be protected!".

With poems it was finished, and Kaverin decides to devote himself to science. He goes to the Eastphalian University of Petrograd and simultaneously to the Arab branch of the Institute of Living Oriental Languages.

The first experience of the prose writer

And yet to overcome the craving for writing Kaverin was not destined. One day after the exam, devoted to the theory of Lobachevsky, he saw a poster about a literary contest held by the House of Writers. Ten minutes, which took the road to the house, Kaverin later called the fateful, determined the main features of his life. He decides to switch to prose and ponders his story, with which he will participate in the contest.

The first prosaic experience of Kaverin, entitled The Eleventh Axiom, was awarded only the third prize. The sum of 3000 rubles was enough for only six toffee - so the money depreciated in 1920, but it was his first literary fee, his first writer's success. Kaverin always remembered him. Veniamin Alexandrovich - biography, the list of books published around the world, was evidence of a high evaluation of his work and talent - until the end of the days he remembered these six toffee.

"Serapion Brothers"

On February 1, 1921, the first meeting of the literary circle, which was named "Serapion Brothers", was held. A lot of "sympathizers" and like-minded people subsequently took part in the meetings, but the canonical composition was permanent: Lev Luntz, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Ilya Gruzdev, Nikolai Nikitin, Elena Polonskaya, Nikolai Tikhonov, Vsevolod Ivanov, Mikhail Slonimsky, Konstantin Fedin. Kaverin became one of the permanent members of the association. Veniamin Alexandrovich, whose works by then began to appear regularly in the press, actively participated in the meetings. He remained faithful to the "brotherhood" and creative principles proclaimed by him, to the end - Kaverin and half a century later marked the beginning of the "Serapion Chronology" - February 1 - as the most important holiday.

And these principles were extremely unseasonable. The very name borrowed by the founding fathers of the circle from the collection of short stories of Ernest Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, the classic of German Romanticism, spoke of complete apoliticalness. This collection mentions a literary community named after the legendary Christian desolate and ascetic Serapion, and the proclamation of the quality of literary work as the main value of the literary work, without taking into account the world outlook and political views of the author, was almost a provocation in the third year of Soviet power.

Cruel Time

Soon, the naivety of their noble impulse became clear to the "brothers" themselves. The ideological differences among them began to appear more and more clearly. "Westernizers" - Lunts, Kaverin, Slonimsky - put above the plot and adventure genres, the "eastern wing" - M. Zoshchenko, Vs. Ivanov - tended to describe the life with the use of folklore motifs. The difference in literary priorities at first did not prevent the preservation of creative and friendly unity, but under powerful blows of official criticism and life circumstances, it also collapsed.

Time dispersed the "brothers" on different sides, making some principled opponents. Lunts in 1924 tragically early passed away; Ivanov, Slonimsky, Nikitin began zealously singing the pathos of the revolutionary struggle; Tikhonov and Fedin later occupied leading positions in the USSR Writers' Union, rigidly pursuing the party line, sparing no dissent. When, after 1946, Zoshchenko got under the powerful pressure of ideological bodies, only one of the "Serapion Brothers" supported him and kept warm relations with him-Veniamin Kaverin. He finally broke off relations with Fedin, when he in 1968 did not allow the publication of the "Cancer Corps" Solzhenitsyn.

Strong Labor and Faithfulness to the Principles

In the "Serapion" times the founder of proletarian literature Maxim Gorky noted that one of the most talented writers of the younger generation is Veniamin Alexandrovich Kaverin. "Two captains" (1940-1945) - a novel with which the name of the writer is first embodied - was rumored to have liked Stalin very much, and he approved the awarding of Kaverin in 1946 to the Stalin Prize, after the publication of the second book on the adventures of Sani Grigoriev. Huge popularity was enjoyed by "Execution of Desires" (1935-1936) and "The Open Book" (1953-1956). During the war, Kaverin worked actively in the Northern Fleet, for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Star.

Perhaps all this helped Kaverin avoid reprisals, such as those suffered by his older brother Leo, many of his studies in the field of virology held while in camps. A letter to Stalin asking for his release was also signed by Kaverin. Official criticism repeatedly attacked the writer, accusing his books of apolitical and entertaining.

Despite this, the writer did not betray his convictions. He participated in the publication of the almanac "Literary Moscow" (1956), banned by the party authorities. Kaverin publicly refused to participate in the persecution of Boris Pasternak in 1958, he wrote a letter in defense of Daniel and Sinyavsky, fought for the publication of books by M. Bulgakov and A. Solzhenitsyn.

The legacy of a writer and a person

Perhaps, it was more convenient for the official authorities to regard him as a cabinet writer who does not have a serious influence on the mass consciousness and the individual minds of readers. But this opinion can not be considered reliable, given the volume and quality written by Kaverin.

"Two captains" only during the life of the writer were reprinted more than 70 times, they and "The Open Book" were repeatedly screened. Reading people know such things as "The Scandal, or Evenings on the Vasilievsky Island" (1928), "Unknown Friend" (1957), "Seven Pairs of the Unclean" (1962), "Double Portrait" (1963), "O. Senkovsky (Baron Brambeus) "(1929, 1964)," Before the Mirror "(1972), etc.

He is the author of many stories and essays, dozens of children's tales. A special trail was left by his memoirs, especially the book "Epilogue" (1979-1989), over the editorship of which he worked until the last hour, until his departure, which occurred in May 1989. But even these volumes can not tell everything about the life of Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin. The true image of this writer and man is preserved in the memory and memoirs of contemporaries after decades, and the scale of his talent, as many literary scholars and ordinary readers have noted, has yet to be truly appreciated.