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Alexander Kuprin: biography, creativity and interesting facts from life. The life and work of Kuprin: a brief description Features of the creative manner of Kuprin

Composition

The work of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was formed during the years of the revolutionary upsurge. All his life he was close to the theme of the insight of a simple Russian man who eagerly sought the truth of life. Kuprin devoted all his creative work to the development of this complex psychological theme. His art, according to contemporaries, was characterized by a special vigilance in seeing the world, concreteness, and a constant desire for knowledge. The cognitive pathos of Kuprin's creativity was combined with a passionate personal interest in the victory of good over all evil. Therefore, most of his works are characterized by dynamics, drama, excitement.
Kuprin's biography is similar to an adventure novel. In terms of the abundance of meetings with people and life observations, it was reminiscent of Gorky's biography. Kuprin traveled a lot, did various jobs: he served in a factory, worked as a loader, played on stage, sang in a church choir.
At an early stage of his work, Kuprin was strongly influenced by Dostoevsky. It manifested itself in the stories "In the Dark", "Moonlight Night", "Madness". He writes about fatal moments, the role of chance in a person's life, analyzes the psychology of human passions. Some stories of that period say that the human will is helpless in the face of elemental chance, that the mind cannot know the mysterious laws that govern a person. A decisive role in overcoming the literary cliches coming from Dostoevsky was played by direct acquaintance with the life of people, with real Russian reality.
He starts writing essays. Their peculiarity is that the writer usually had a leisurely conversation with the reader. They clearly showed clear storylines, a simple and detailed depiction of reality. G. Uspensky had the greatest influence on Kuprin the essayist.
The first creative searches of Kuprin ended with the largest thing that reflected reality. It was the story "Moloch". In it, the writer shows the contradictions between capital and human forced labor. He was able to capture the social characteristics of the latest forms of capitalist production. An angry protest against the monstrous violence against man, on which the industrial flourishing in the world of “Moloch” is based, a satirical demonstration of the new masters of life, the exposure of the shameless predation in the country of foreign capital - all this cast doubt on the theory of bourgeois progress. After essays and stories, the story was an important stage in the writer's work.
In search of moral and spiritual ideals of life, which the writer opposed to the ugliness of modern human relations, Kuprin turns to the life of vagabonds, beggars, drunken artists, starving unrecognized artists, children of the poor urban population. It is a world of nameless people who form the mass of society. Among them, Kuprin tried to find his positive heroes. He writes the stories “Lidochka”, “Lokon”, “Kindergarten”, “In the Circus” - in these works the heroes of Kuprin are free from the influence of bourgeois civilization.
In 1898 Kuprin wrote the story "Olesya". The scheme of the story is traditional: an intellectual, an ordinary and urban person, in a remote corner of Polissya meets a girl who grew up outside of society and civilization. Olesya is distinguished by spontaneity, integrity of nature, spiritual wealth. Poetizing life, unlimited by modern social cultural framework. Kuprin sought to show the clear advantages of the “natural man”, in whom he saw the spiritual qualities lost in a civilized society.
In 1901, Kuprin came to St. Petersburg, where he became close to many writers. During this period, his story “The Night Shift” appears, where the main character is a simple soldier. The hero is not a detached person, not a forest Olesya, but a very real person. Threads stretch from the image of this soldier to other heroes. It was at this time that a new genre appeared in his work: the short story.
In 1902, Kuprin conceived the story "Duel". In this work, he shattered one of the main foundations of autocracy - the military caste, in the lines of decay and moral decline of which he showed signs of the decomposition of the entire social system. The story reflects the progressive aspects of Kuprin's work. The basis of the plot is the fate of an honest Russian officer, whom the conditions of army barracks life made him feel the illegality of people's social relations. Again, Kuprin is not talking about an outstanding personality, but about a simple Russian officer Romashov. The regimental atmosphere torments him, he does not want to be in the army garrison. He became disillusioned with the army. He begins to fight for himself and his love. And the death of Romashov is a protest against the social and moral inhumanity of the environment.
With the onset of reaction and the aggravation of public life in society, Kuprin's creative concepts also change. During these years, his interest in the world of ancient legends, history, and antiquity intensified. In creativity, an interesting fusion of poetry and prose, the real and the legendary, the real and the romance of feelings, arises. Kuprin gravitates toward the exotic, developing fantastic plots. He returns to the themes of his early novel. The motives of the inevitability of chance in the fate of a person sound again.
In 1909, the story "The Pit" was published from the pen of Kuprin. Here Kuprin pays tribute to naturalism. He shows the inhabitants of the brothel. The whole story consists of scenes, portraits and clearly breaks up into separate details of everyday life.
However, in a number of stories written in the same years, Kuprin tried to point out the real signs of high spiritual and moral values in reality itself. “Garnet Bracelet” is a story about love. This is how Paustovsky spoke about him: this is one of the most “fragrant” stories about love.
In 1919 Kuprin emigrated. In exile, he writes the novel "Janet". This is a work about the tragic loneliness of a man who lost his homeland. This is a story about the touching attachment of an old professor, who ended up in exile, to a little Parisian girl - the daughter of a street newspaper woman.
The emigrant period of Kuprin is characterized by withdrawal into himself. A major autobiographical work of that period is the novel "Junker".
In exile, the writer Kuprin did not lose faith in the future of his homeland. At the end of his life, he still returns to Russia. And his work rightfully belongs to Russian art, the Russian people.

The mysterious house on the outskirts of Gatchina enjoyed a bad reputation. It was said that there is a brothel here. Because music until late at night, songs, laughter. And, by the way, F. I. Chaliapin (1873-1938) sang, A. T. Averchenko (1881-1925) and his colleagues from the Satyricon magazine laughed. And Alexander Kuprin, a friend and neighbor of the owner of the house, an extravagant cartoonist P. E. Shcherbov (1866-1938), often visited here.

October 1919

Leaving Gatchina with the retreating Yudenich, Kuprin will run here for a few minutes to ask Shcherbov's wife to take the most valuable things from his house. She will fulfill the request, and, among other things, will capture a framed photo of Kuprin. Shcherbova knew that it was his favorite picture, so she kept it as a relic. She did not even guess what hidden secret the portrait hid.

Mystery of the Daguerreotype

And now the photograph of the writer becomes an exhibit of the museum.
When drawing up the act by the museum employees, under the cardboard of the frame, on the back side, a negative of another photograph was found. On it is an image of an unknown woman. Who is this lady, whose image Kuprin, as the inside of his soul, kept, protecting from someone else's gaze.

Biography of Kuprin, interesting facts

Once, at a literary banquet, a young poetess (the future wife of the writer Alexei Tolstoy (1883-1945)) drew attention to a dense man who looked at her point-blank, as it seemed to the poetess with evil, bearish eyes.
“Writer Kuprin,” the table neighbor whispered in her ear. - Don't look in his direction. He is drunk"

This was the only case when retired lieutenant Alexander Kuprin was impolite to a lady. In relation to the ladies, Kuprin has always been a knight. Over the manuscript of the Garnet Bracelet, Kuprin wept and said that he had never written anything more chaste. However, readers' opinions are divided.

Some called "The Garnet Bracelet" the most tiresome and fragrant of all love stories. Others considered it to be gilded tinsel.

Failed duel

Already in exile, the writer A. I. Vvedensky (1904-1941) told Kuprin that the plot in The Garnet Bracelet was not believable. After these words, Kuprin challenged his opponent to a duel. He accepted the Vvedensky challenge, but then everyone who was nearby intervened, and the duelists were reconciled. However, Kuprin still stood his ground, arguing that his work was a true story. It was clear that something deeply personal was connected with the "Garnet Bracelet".
It is still unknown who was that lady, the inspirer of the great work of the writer.

In general, Kuprin did not write poems, but he nevertheless published one thing in one of the magazines:
"You're funny with gray hair...
What can I say to that?
That love and death own us?
That their orders cannot be avoided?

In the poem and "Garnet Bracelet", you can see the same tragic leitmotif. Undivided, some kind of exalted and uplifting love for an inaccessible woman. Whether she actually existed, and what her name is, we do not know. Kuprin was a knightly chaste man. He did not let anyone into the secret places of his soul.

Brief love story

In exile in Paris, Kuprin took on the chores of preparing the wedding of I. A. Bunin (1870-1953) and Vera Muromtseva (1981-1961), who lived in a civil marriage for 16 years. Finally, the first wife of Ivan Alekseevich agreed to a divorce, and Kuprin offered to organize the wedding. He was the best man. I negotiated with the priest, sang along to the choir. He really liked all church ceremonies, but this one especially.

In those days, Kuprin wrote about the most romantic love of his youth, Olga Sur, a circus rider. Kuprin remembered Olga all his life, and in the hiding place of the writer's portrait, it is quite possible that it was her image.

Parisian period

In Paris, they were anxiously awaiting the decision of the Nobel Committee. Everyone knew that they wanted to give the prize to the Russian writer-exile, and three candidates were being considered: D. S. Merezhkovsky (1865-1941), I. A. Bunin and A. I. Kuprin. Dmitry Merezhkovsky's nerves could not stand it, and he suggested that Bunin conclude an agreement, whichever of the two of them would be given a prize, to divide all the money in half. Bunin refused.

Kuprin did not say a word on the Nobel theme. He had already received the Pushkin Prize for two with Bunin. In Odessa, having drunk the last banknote, Kuprin, at the restaurant, slobbered a bill, and stuck it on the forehead of the doorman who was standing next to him.

Acquaintance with I. A. Bunin

I. A. Bunin and A. I. Kuprin met in Odessa. Their friendship was very reminiscent of rivalry. Kuprin called Bunin Richard, Albert, Vasya. Kuprin said: “I hate the way you write. It ripples in the eyes." Bunin, on the other hand, considered Kuprin talented, and loved the writer, but endlessly sought out errors in his language and not only.
Even before the revolution of 1917, he said to Alexander Ivanovich: "Well, you are a nobleman by mother." Kuprin squeezed the silver spoon into a ball and threw it into a corner.

Moving to France

Bunin dragged Kuprin from Finland to France, and picked up an apartment for him in a house on Jacques Offenbach Street, on the same landing with his apartment. And then Kuprin's guests began to annoy him, and endless noisy farewells at the elevator. The cupcakes have moved out.

Acquaintance with Musya

Many years ago, it was Bunin who dragged Kuprin in St. Petersburg to a house on Razyezzhaya Street, 7. He had long been acquainted with Musya, Maria Karlovna Davydova (1881-1960), and began to joke that he had brought Kuprin to marry her. Musya supported the joke, a whole scene was played out. Everyone had a lot of fun.

At that time, Kuprin was in love with the daughter of his friends. He really liked the state of falling in love, and when he was not there, he invented it for himself. Alexander Ivanovich also fell in love with Musya, he began to call her Masha, despite the protests that that was the name of the cooks.
The publisher Davydova raised her as an aristocrat, and few people remembered that the girl was thrown into this house as a baby. Young, pretty Musya was spoiled by laughter, unkind, not young. She could make fun of anyone. There were a lot of people around her. Fans courted, Musya flirted.

The beginning of family life

Having rather friendly feelings for Kuprin, she nevertheless married him. He chose a wedding gift for a long time, and finally bought a beautiful gold watch in an antique store. Musa did not like the gift. Kuprin crushed the watch with his heel.
Musya Davydova loved to tell after receptions who was courting her, she liked how jealous Kuprin was.

This big and wild animal turned out to be completely tame. Holding back his rage, he somehow crushed a heavy silver ashtray into a cake. He broke her portrait in a heavy massive frame, and once set fire to Musa's dress. However, the wife, from childhood, was distinguished by an iron will, and Kuprin experienced this.

A fine line

Not knowing what would come of it, Musya Davydova brought him to visit her beloved. Their apartment was located in the same house. The head of the family, in order to entertain the guests, showed an album in which there were letters from a stranger to his fiancee, and then to his wife Lyudmila Ivanovna. The unknown person sang and blessed every moment of this woman's life, starting from birth.

He kissed her footprints and the ground she walked on, and sent a gift for Easter - a cheap puffy gold bracelet with a few pomegranate stones. Kuprin sat as if struck by thunder. Here it is the same love, he then worked on the “Duel” and, under the impression, wrote the following: “Love has its peaks, accessible only to a few out of millions.”

Unrequited love is an insane bliss that never dulls. Precisely because it is not satisfied with the reciprocal feeling. This is the highest happiness." According to literary experts, this meeting gave rise to the "Garnet Bracelet".

Recognition in society

Kuprin gained particular popularity after the words of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910): "Of the young, he writes better." A crowd of fans accompanied him from one restaurant to another. And after the release of the story "Duel", A. I. Kuprin became truly famous. The publishers offered him any fees in advance, which could be better. But few people noticed that at that time he suffered a lot. Kuprin coped with his feelings in this way - he simply left for Balaklava, sometimes right from the restaurant.

Crimean period

Here in Balaklava, alone with himself, he wanted to make a decision. The strong will of his wife suppressed his freedom. For the writer, it was like death. He could give everything for the opportunity to be himself, so as not to sit at a desk all day long, but to observe life, to communicate with ordinary people.

In Balaklava, he especially liked to communicate with local fishermen. They even decided to buy their own plot of land to build their own garden and build a house. Generally speaking, he wanted to settle down here. Kuprin passed all the tests to join the local fishing artel. He learned to knit nets, tie ropes, tar leaky boats. Artel accepted Kuprin and he went to sea with fishermen.

He liked all those signs that the fishermen observed. You can't whistle on the longboat, only spit overboard, don't mention the devil. Leave in gear, as if by accident, a small fish for further fishing happiness.

Creativity in Yalta

From Balaklava, Alexander Kuprin was very fond of traveling to Yalta to see A.P. Chekhov (1960-1904). He liked talking to him about everything. A.P. Chekhov took an active part in the fate of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin. Once he helped to move to St. Petersburg, recommended him to publishers. He even offered a room in his Yalta house so that Kuprin could work in peace. A.P. Chekhov introduced Alexander Ivanovich to the winemakers of the Massandra plant.

The writer needed to study the process of making wine for the story "Wine Barrel". A sea of Madeira, Muscat and other Massandra temptations, what could be more beautiful. AI Kuprin drank a little, enjoying the aroma of excellent Crimean wine. This is how Anton Chekhov knew him, knowing perfectly well the reasons for his comrade's spree.
During this period of life, the Kuprins were expecting the birth of a child.

Musya Davydova was pregnant (daughter Lydia was born in 1903). Constant whims and tears several times a day, the fears of a pregnant woman before the upcoming birth, were reasons for family quarrels. Once Musya broke a glass decanter on Kuprin's head. Thus her behavior resolved all his doubts.

Nobel Laureate

On November 9, 1933, the Nobel Committee announced its decision. I. A. Bunin received the prize. He allocated 120 thousand francs from her in favor of distressed writers. Kuprin was given five thousand. He did not want to take money, but there was no means of subsistence. Daughter Ksenia Aleksandrovna Kuprina (1908-1981) acts in films, we need outfits, how much junk can be altered.

Writer's childhood

Alexander Kuprin called his childhood the meanest period of his life and the most beautiful. The district town of Narovchat in the Penza province, in which he was born, Kuprin imagined all his life as the promised land.
The soul was torn there and there were three heroes with whom he performed feats of arms. Sergey, Innokenty, Boris are the three Kuprin brothers who died in infancy. The family already had two daughters, but the boys were dying.

Then the pregnant Lyubov Alekseevna Kuprina (1838-1910) went to the elder for advice. The wise old man taught her when a boy is born, and this will be on the eve of Alexander Nevsky, to call him Alexander and order an icon of this saint in the growth of a baby and everything will be fine.
Exactly one year later, almost on the birthday of the future writer, his father died - Ivan Kuprin (whose biography is not very remarkable). The proud Tatar princess Kulanchakova (married Kuprin) was left alone with three small children.

Kuprin's father was not an exemplary family man. Frequent sprees and drinking parties with local comrades forced the children and wife to live in constant fear. The wife hid her husband's hobbies from local gossip. After the death of the breadwinner, the house in Narovchat was sold and she went with little Sasha to Moscow to the widow's house.

Moscow life

Kuprin's childhood was spent surrounded by old women. The rare visits of mother's wealthy Penza friends were not a holiday for him. If they began to deliver a sweet holiday cake, then the mother began to assure that Sashenka did not like sweets. That he can only be given a dry edge of the pie.

Sometimes she presented a silver cigarette case to her son's nose and amused the master's children: “This is the nose of my Sashenka. He is a very ugly boy and it is very embarrassing.” Little Sasha decided to pray to God every evening and ask God to make him pretty. When the mother left, so that her son behaved calmly and did not anger the old women, she tied his leg with a rope to a chair or drew a circle with chalk, beyond which it was impossible to go. She loved her son and sincerely believed that she was making him better.

Mother's death

From his first writer's fee, Kuprin bought shoes for his mother and later sent part of all his earnings to her. More than anything, he was afraid of losing her. Kuprin gave his mother a promise that he would not bury her, but she would be the first to bury him.
Mother wrote: "I am hopeless, but don't come." This was the last letter from my mother. The son filled his mother's coffin to the top with flowers, and invited the best choristers in Moscow. The death of his mother, Kuprin called the funeral of his youth.

Village period from the life of A. I. Kuprin

That summer (1907) he lived in Danilovsky, on the estate of his friend, the Russian philosopher F. D. Batyushkov (1857-1920). He really liked the color of the local nature and its inhabitants. The peasants greatly respected the writer, calling him Alexandra Ivanovich Kuplenny. The writer liked the village customs of ordinary people. Once Batyushkov took him to his neighbor, the famous pianist Vera Sipyagina-Lilienfeld (18??-19??).

That evening she played Beethoven's Appassionata, investing in the music the suffering of a hopeless feeling, which she had to hide deeply from everyone. At the age of well over 40, she fell in love with a handsome man who was fit for her sons. It was love without a present and without a future. Tears rolled down her cheeks, the game shocked everyone. There, the writer met the young Elizabeth Heinrich, the niece of another great writer, D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak (1852-1912).

F. D. Batyushkov: saving plan

Kuprin confessed to F. D. Batyushkov: “I love Lisa Heinrich. I do not know what to do". That same evening in the garden during a blinding summer thunderstorm, Kuprin told Liza everything. In the morning she disappeared. Lisa likes Kuprin, but he is married to Musa, who is like a sister to her. Batyushkov found Lisa and convinced her that Kuprin's marriage had already broken up, that Alexander Ivanovich would get drunk, and Russian literature would lose a great writer.

Only she, Lisa, can save him. And it was true. Musya wanted to sculpt everything she wanted out of Alexander, and Lisa allowed this element to rage, but without devastating consequences. In other words, be yourself.

Unknown facts from the biography of Kuprin

Newspapers choked on the sensation: "Kuprin as a diver." After a free flight with the pilot S. I. Utochkin (1876-1916) in a balloon, he, a fan of strong sensations, decided to sink to the bottom of the sea. Kuprin had great respect for extreme situations. And he was drawn to them in every possible way. There was even a case when Alexander Ivanovich and the wrestler I. M. Zaikin (1880-1948) crashed on an airplane.

The plane is shattered, but the pilot and passengers at least have something. “Nikolai Ugodnik saved,” said Kuprin. At this time, Kuprin already had a newborn daughter, Ksenia. From such news, Lisa even lost her milk.

Moving to Gatchina

The arrest was a big surprise for him. The reason was Kuprin's article about the Ochakov cruiser. The writer was evicted from Balaklava without the right to reside. Alexander Kuprin witnessed the rebellious sailors of the cruiser "Ochakov", and wrote about it in the newspaper.
In addition to Balaklava, Kuprin could only live in Gatchina. The family is here and bought a house. A garden and a vegetable garden appeared, which Kuprin cultivated with great love, together with his daughter Ksenia. Daughter Lidochka also came here.

During the First World War, Kuprin organized a hospital in his house. Lisa and the girls became sisters of mercy.
Lisa allowed him to arrange a real menagerie in the house. Cats, dogs, monkey, goat, bear. Local children ran after him around the city, because he bought ice cream for everyone. The beggars lined up outside the city church because he served to everyone.

Once the whole city ate black caviar with spoons. His friend, wrestler I.M. Zaikin sent him a whole barrel of delicacy. But most importantly, Kuprin was finally able to write at home. He called it the "writing period". When he sat down to write, the whole house froze. Even the dogs stopped barking.

Life in exile

In his desecrated and devastated house in 1919, an obscure village teacher will collect priceless sheets of the manuscript burned, covered with dust, fumes and earth, from the floor. Thus, some of the saved manuscripts have survived to this day.
The whole burden of emigration will fall on Liza's shoulders. Kuprin in everyday life, like all writers, was very helpless. It was during the period of emigration that the writer became very old. The vision got worse. He saw almost nothing. The uneven and intermittent handwriting of the Juncker manuscript was evidence of this. After this work, all the manuscripts for Kuprin were written by his wife, Elizaveta Moritsovna Kuprina (1882-1942).
For several years in a row, Kuprin came to one of the Parisian restaurants and at the table composed messages to an unknown lady. Perhaps the one that was on the negative in the portrait frame of the writer.

Love and death

In May 1937, I. A. Bunin opened a newspaper on the train and read that A. I. Kuprin had returned home. He was shocked not even by the news that he learned, but by the fact that, nevertheless, in some ways Kuprin outran him. Bunin also wanted to go home. They all wanted to die in Russia. Before his death, Kuprin invited a priest and talked to him about something for a long time. Until his last breath, he held Lisa by the hand. So that the bruises on her wrist did not go away for a long time.
On the night of August 25, 1938, A.I. Kuprin died.

Left alone, Lisa Kuprina hanged herself in besieged Leningrad. Not from hunger, but from loneliness, from the fact that there was no one nearby whom she loved with the same love that occurs once in a thousand years. The love that is stronger than death. They removed the ring from her hand, and read the inscription: “Alexander. August 16, 1909." On this day they got married. She never took this ring off her hand.

Experts gave an unexpected expert opinion. The daguerreotype depicts a young Tatar girl, who in many years will become the mother of the great Russian writer Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin.

Kuprin's biography is similar to an adventure novel. In terms of the abundance of meetings with people and life observations, it was reminiscent of Gorky's biography. Kuprin traveled a lot, did various jobs: he served in a factory, worked as a loader, played on stage, sang in a church choir.

At an early stage of his work, Kuprin was strongly influenced by Dostoevsky. It manifested itself in the stories "In the Dark", "Moonlight Night", "Madness". He writes about fatal moments, the role of chance in a person's life, analyzes the psychology of human passions. Some stories of that period say that the human will is helpless in the face of elemental chance, that the mind cannot know the mysterious laws that govern a person. A decisive role in overcoming the literary cliches coming from Dostoevsky was played by direct acquaintance with the life of people, with real Russian reality.

He starts writing essays. Their peculiarity is that the writer usually had a leisurely conversation with the reader. They clearly showed clear storylines, a simple and detailed depiction of reality. G. Uspensky had the greatest influence on Kuprin the essayist.

The first creative searches of Kuprin ended with the largest thing that reflected reality. It was the story "Moloch". In it, the writer shows the contradictions between capital and human forced labor. He was able to capture the social characteristics of the latest forms of capitalist production. An angry protest against the monstrous violence against man, on which the industrial flourishing in the world of “Moloch” is based, a satirical demonstration of the new masters of life, the exposure of the shameless predation in the country of foreign capital - all this cast doubt on the theory of bourgeois progress. After essays and stories, the story was an important stage in the writer's work.

In search of moral and spiritual ideals of life, which the writer opposed to the ugliness of modern human relations, Kuprin turns to the life of vagabonds, beggars, drunken artists, starving unrecognized artists, children of the poor urban population. It is a world of nameless people who form the mass of society. Among them, Kuprin tried to find his positive heroes. He writes the stories “Lidochka”, “Lokon”, “Kindergarten”, “In the Circus” - in these works the heroes of Kuprin are free from the influence of bourgeois civilization.

In 1898 Kuprin wrote the story "Olesya". The scheme of the story is traditional: an intellectual, an ordinary and urban person, in a remote corner of Polissya meets a girl who grew up outside of society and civilization. Olesya is distinguished by spontaneity, integrity of nature, spiritual wealth. Poetizing life, unlimited by modern social cultural framework. Kuprin sought to show the clear advantages of the “natural man”, in whom he saw the spiritual qualities lost in a civilized society.

In 1901, Kuprin came to St. Petersburg, where he became close to many writers. During this period, his story “The Night Shift” appears, where the main character is a simple soldier. The hero is not a detached person, not a forest Olesya, but a very real person. Threads stretch from the image of this soldier to other heroes. It was at this time that a new genre appeared in his work: the short story.

In 1902, Kuprin conceived the story "Duel". In this work, he shattered one of the main foundations of autocracy - the military caste, in the lines of decay and moral decline of which he showed signs of the decomposition of the entire social system. The story reflects the progressive aspects of Kuprin's work. The basis of the plot is the fate of an honest Russian officer, whom the conditions of army barracks life made him feel the illegality of people's social relations. Again, Kuprin is not talking about an outstanding personality, but about a simple Russian officer Romashov. The regimental atmosphere torments him, he does not want to be in the army garrison. He became disillusioned with the army. He begins to fight for himself and his love. And the death of Romashov is a protest against the social and moral inhumanity of the environment.

With the onset of reaction and the aggravation of public life in society, Kuprin's creative concepts also change. During these years, his interest in the world of ancient legends, history, and antiquity intensified. In creativity, an interesting fusion of poetry and prose, the real and the legendary, the real and the romance of feelings, arises. Kuprin gravitates toward the exotic, developing fantastic plots. He returns to the themes of his early novel. The motives of the inevitability of chance in the fate of a person sound again.

In 1909, the story "The Pit" was published from the pen of Kuprin. Here Kuprin pays tribute to naturalism. He shows the inhabitants of the brothel. The whole story consists of scenes, portraits and clearly breaks up into separate details of everyday life.

However, in a number of stories written in the same years, Kuprin tried to point out the real signs of high spiritual and moral values in reality itself. “Garnet Bracelet” is a story about love. This is how Paustovsky spoke about him: this is one of the most “fragrant” stories about love.

In 1919 Kuprin emigrated. In exile, he writes the novel "Janet". This is a work about the tragic loneliness of a man who lost his homeland. This is a story about the touching attachment of an old professor, who ended up in exile, to a little Parisian girl - the daughter of a street newspaper woman.

The emigrant period of Kuprin is characterized by withdrawal into himself. A major autobiographical work of that period is the novel "Junker".

In exile, the writer Kuprin did not lose faith in the future of his homeland. At the end of his life, he still returns to Russia. And his work rightfully belongs to Russian art, the Russian people.

Military career

Born in the family of a petty official who died when his son was in his second year. A mother from a Tatar princely family, after the death of her husband, was in poverty and was forced to send her son to an orphanage for minors (1876), then a military gymnasium, later transformed into a cadet corps, from which he graduated in 1888. In 1890 he graduated from the Alexander Military School. Then he served in the 46th Dnieper Infantry Regiment, preparing for a military career. Not enrolling in the Academy of the General Staff (this was prevented by a scandal associated with the violent, especially drunk, disposition of the cadet who threw a policeman into the water), Lieutenant Kuprin resigned in 1894.

Life style

The figure of Kuprin was extremely colorful. Greedy for impressions, he led a wandering life, trying different professions - from a loader to a dentist. Autobiographical life material formed the basis of many of his works.

Legends circulated about his turbulent life. Possessing remarkable physical strength and explosive temperament, Kuprin greedily rushed towards any new life experience: he went down under water in a diving suit, flew an airplane (this flight ended in a disaster that almost cost Kuprin his life), organized an athletic society ... During the First World war in his Gatchina house was arranged by him and his wife a private infirmary.

The writer was interested in people of various professions: engineers, organ grinders, fishermen, card sharpers, beggars, monks, merchants, spies ... In order to more reliably know the person who interested him, to feel the air that he breathes, he was ready, not sparing himself, the wildest adventure. According to his contemporaries, he approached life like a true researcher, seeking the fullest and most detailed knowledge possible.

Kuprin was willingly engaged in journalism, publishing articles and reports in various newspapers, traveled a lot, living either in Moscow, or near Ryazan, or in Balaklava, or in Gatchina.

Writer and revolution

Dissatisfaction with the existing social order attracted the writer to revolution, so Kuprin, like many other writers of his contemporaries, paid tribute to revolutionary sentiments. However, he reacted sharply negatively to the Bolshevik coup and to the power of the Bolsheviks. At first, he nevertheless tried to cooperate with the Bolshevik authorities and even planned to publish the peasant newspaper Zemlya, for which he met with Lenin.

But soon he unexpectedly went over to the side of the White movement, and after its defeat, he left first for Finland, and then for France, where he settled in Paris (until 1937). There he actively participated in the anti-Bolshevik press, continued his literary activity (the novels The Wheel of Time, 1929; Junkers, 1928-32; Janet, 1932-33; articles and stories). But living in exile, the writer was terribly poor, suffering both from lack of demand and isolation from his native soil, and shortly before his death, believing in Soviet propaganda, in May 1937 he returned with his wife to Russia. By this time he was already seriously ill.

Sympathy for the common man

Almost all of Kuprin's work is imbued with the pathos of sympathy, traditional for Russian literature, for the "little" person, doomed to drag out a miserable lot in a stagnant, miserable environment. In Kuprin, this sympathy was expressed not only in the depiction of the "bottom" of society (the novel about the life of prostitutes "The Pit", 1909-15, etc.), but also in the images of his intelligent, suffering heroes. Kuprin was inclined precisely to such reflective, nervous to the point of hysteria, characters not devoid of sentimentality. Engineer Bobrov (the story "Moloch", 1896), endowed with a quivering soul responsive to someone else's pain, worries about the workers who waste their lives in overworking factory labor, while the rich live on ill-gotten money. Even characters from the military environment like Romashov or Nazansky (the story "Duel", 1905) have a very high pain threshold and a small margin of mental strength to withstand the vulgarity and cynicism of their environment. Romashov is tormented by the stupidity of military service, the debauchery of the officers, the downtroddenness of the soldiers. Perhaps none of the writers threw such a passionate accusation against the army environment as Kuprin. True, in the depiction of ordinary people, Kuprin differed from the populist writers prone to popular worship (although he received the approval of the venerable populist critic N. Mikhailovsky). His democratism was not limited to a tearful demonstration of their "humiliation and insult." A simple man in Kuprin turned out to be not only weak, but also able to stand up for himself, possessing an enviable inner strength. Folk life appeared in his works in its free, spontaneous, natural course, with its own circle of ordinary concerns - not only sorrows, but also joys and consolations (Listrigons, 1908-11).

At the same time, the writer saw not only its bright sides and healthy beginnings, but also outbursts of aggressiveness and cruelty, easily directed by dark instincts (the famous description of the Jewish pogrom in the story Gambrinus, 1907).

The Joy of Being In many of Kuprin's works, the presence of an ideal, romantic beginning is clearly felt: it is both in his craving for heroic plots and in his desire to see the highest manifestations of the human spirit - in love, creativity, kindness ... It is no coincidence that he often chose heroes that fell out, breaking out of the habitual rut of life, seeking the truth and seeking some other, more complete and living being, freedom, beauty, grace ... but who in the literature of that time, so poetically, like Kuprin, wrote about love, tried to restore her humanity and romance. "Garnet Bracelet" (1911) has become for many readers just such a work, where pure, disinterested, ideal feeling is sung.

A brilliant depicter of the mores of the most diverse strata of society, Kuprin described the environment, life in relief, with special intentness (for which he got criticized more than once). There was also a naturalistic tendency in his work.

At the same time, the writer, like no one else, knew how to feel the course of natural, natural life from the inside - his stories "Barbos and Zhulka" (1897), "Emerald" (1907) were included in the golden fund of works about animals. The ideal of natural life (the story "Olesya", 1898) is very important for Kuprin as a kind of desired norm, he often highlights modern life with it, finding sad deviations from this ideal in it.

For many critics, it was precisely this natural, organic perception of Kuprin's life, the healthy joy of being, that was the main distinguishing quality of his prose with its harmonious fusion of lyrics and romance, plot-compositional proportionality, dramatic action and accuracy in descriptions.

Literary skill Kuprin is an excellent master not only of the literary landscape and everything connected with the external, visual and olfactory perception of life (Bunin and Kuprin competed who would more accurately determine the smell of a particular phenomenon), but also of a literary nature: portrait, psychology, speech - everything is worked out to the smallest nuances. Even the animals that Kuprin liked to write about reveal complexity and depth in him.

The narration in Kuprin's works, as a rule, is very spectacular and is often turned - unobtrusively and without false speculation - precisely to existential problems. He reflects on love, hatred, the will to live, despair, the strength and weakness of man, recreates the complex spiritual world of man at the turn of epochs.

The life experience and work of AI Kuprin are extremely closely related to each other. The autobiographical element occupies an important place in the writer's books. For the most part, the author wrote about what he saw with his own eyes, experienced with his soul, but not as an observer, but as a direct participant in life's dramas and comedies. What was experienced and seen was transformed in different ways in creativity - these were both cursory sketches, and an accurate description of specific situations, and a deep socio-psychological analysis.

At the beginning of his literary activity, the classic paid much attention to everyday color. But even then he showed a penchant for social analysis. In his entertaining book "Kyiv Types" there is not only a picturesque everyday exotic, but also a hint of the all-Russian social environment. At the same time, Kuprin does not delve into the psychology of people. It was not until years later that he began to carefully and scrupulously study diverse human material.

This was especially clearly manifested in such a theme of his work as an army environment. It is with the army that the first realistic work of the writer is connected - the story "Inquiry" (1894). In it, he described a type of person who suffers at the sight of injustice, but is spiritually restless, devoid of strong-willed qualities and unable to fight evil. And such an indecisive truth seeker begins to accompany all of Kuprin's work.

Army stories are notable for the writer's faith in the Russian soldier. She makes such works as "Army Ensign", "Night Shift", "Overnight" truly spiritualized. Kuprin shows the soldier as resilient, with a rude but healthy humor, intelligent, observant, inclined to original philosophizing.

The final stage of creative searches at an early stage of literary activity was the story "Moloch" (1896), which brought real fame to the young writer. In this story, at the center of the action is a humane, kind, impressionable person, reflecting on life. Society itself is shown as a transitional formation, that is, one in which changes are brewing that are not clear not only to the actors, but also to the author.

A great place in the work of A. I. Kuprin was occupied by love. The writer can even be called a singer of love. An example of this is the story "At the junction" (1894). The beginning of the story does not portend anything sublime. A train, a compartment, a married couple - an elderly boring official, his young beautiful wife and a young artist who happened to be with them. He is interested in the official's wife, and she is interested in him.

At first glance, the story of a banal romance and adultery. But no, the skill of the writer turns a trivial plot into a serious topic. The story shows how a chance meeting illuminates the lives of two good people with honest souls. Kuprin so psychologically verified built a small work that he was able to say a lot in it.

But the most remarkable work dedicated to the theme of love is the story "Olesya". It can be called a forest fairy tale, drawn with the authenticity and precision of details inherent in realistic art. The girl herself is a whole, serious, deep nature, there is a lot of sincerity and spontaneity in her. And the hero of the story is an ordinary person with an amorphous character. But under the influence of a mysterious forest girl, he brightens his soul and seems ready to become a noble and whole person.

The work of AI Kuprin conveys not only the concrete, everyday, visible, but also rises to symbolism, which implies the very spirit of certain phenomena. Such, for example, is the story "Swamp". The overall color of the story is heavy and gloomy, similar to the swamp fog in which the action takes place. This almost plotless work shows the slow death of a peasant family in a forest lodge.

The artistic means used by the classic are such that there is a feeling of a fatal nightmare. And the very image of a forest, dark and sinister swamp acquires an expanded meaning, creates the impression of some kind of abnormal swamp life, smoldering in the gloomy corners of a vast country.

In 1905, the story "Duel" was published, in which the methods of psychological analysis indicate Kuprin's connection with the traditions of Russian classics of the 19th century. In this work, the writer showed himself to be a first-class master of the word. He once again proved his ability to comprehend the dialectics of soul and thought, to paint typical characters and typical circumstances artistically.

A few words should also be said about the story "Staff Captain Rybnikov". Before Kuprin, no one in Russian and foreign literature created such a psychological detective story. The fascination of the story lies in the picturesque two-dimensional image of Rybnikov and the psychological duel between him and the journalist Shchavinsky, as well as in the tragic denouement that occurs under unusual circumstances.

The poetry of labor and the aroma of the sea are fanned with the stories of "Listrigons", which tell about Balaklava Greek fishermen. In this cycle, the classic showed in all its beauty the original corner of the Russian Empire. In the stories, the concreteness of the descriptions is combined with a kind of epic and ingenuous fabulousness.

In 1908, the story "Shulamith" appeared, which was called a hymn to female beauty and youth. This is a poem in prose, combining sensuality and spirituality. There is a lot of bold, bold, frank in the poem, but there is no falsehood. The work tells about the poetic love of the king and a simple girl, ending tragically. Shulamith becomes a victim of dark forces. The sword of the killer slays her, but he cannot destroy the memory of her and her love.

I must say that the classic has always been interested in "small", "ordinary people". Such a person he made a hero in the story "Garnet Bracelet" (1911). The meaning of this brilliant story is that love is as strong as death. The originality of the work lies in the gradual and almost imperceptible increase in the tragic theme. There is also a touch of Shakespeare. She breaks through the quirks of a funny official and conquers the reader.

The story "Black Lightning" (1912) is interesting in its own way. In it, the work of A. I. Kuprin opens from another side. This work depicts provincial provincial Russia with its apathy and ignorance. But it also shows those spiritual forces that lurk in provincial cities and from time to time make themselves felt.

During the First World War, from the pen of the classic came such a work as "Violets", glorifying the springtime in a person's life. And the continuation was social criticism, embodied in the story "Cantaloupe". In it, the writer draws the image of a cunning businessman and a hypocrite who profits from military supplies.

Even before the war, Kuprin began to work on a powerful and deep social canvas, which he called gloomily and briefly - "The Pit". The first part of this story was published in 1909, and in 1915 the publication of The Pit was completed. The work created true images of women who found themselves at the bottom of life. The classic masterfully portrayed individual character traits and gloomy nooks and crannies of the big city.

Finding himself in exile after the October Revolution and the Civil War, Kuprin began to write about old Russia, as about an amazing past that always pleased and amused him. The main essence of his works of this period was to reveal the inner world of his characters. At the same time, the writer often turned to the memories of his youth. This is how the novel "Junker" appeared, which made a significant contribution to Russian prose.

The classic describes the loyal moods of future infantry officers, youthful love, and such an eternal theme as motherly love. And of course, the writer does not forget nature. It is communication with nature that fills the youthful soul with joy and gives impetus to the first philosophical reflections.

The "Junkers" masterfully and competently describe the life of the school, while it is not only informative, but also historical information. The novel is also interesting in the gradual formation of a young soul. The reader unfolds a chronicle of the spiritual formation of one of the Russian youths of the late XIX - early XX century. This work can be called an elegy in prose with great artistic and cognitive merits.

The skill of the realist artist, sympathy for the ordinary citizen with his everyday worldly concerns were extremely clearly manifested in the miniature essays dedicated to Paris. The writer united them under one name - "Paris at Home". When the work of AI Kuprin was in its infancy, he created a cycle of essays about Kyiv. And after many years in exile, the classic returned to the genre of urban sketches, only the place of Kyiv was now taken by Paris.

French impressions were reunited in a peculiar way with nostalgic memories of Russia in the novel Janet. The state of restlessness, spiritual loneliness, unquenched thirst to find a close soul was soulfully conveyed in it. The novel "Janeta" is one of the most masterful and psychologically subtle works and, perhaps, the saddest creation of the classic.

Witty and original in its essence, the fabulously legendary work "The Blue Star" appears before the readers. In this romantic tale, the main theme is love. The action of the plot takes place in an unknown fantasy country, where an unknown people live with their own culture, customs, and mores. And a brave traveler, a French prince, penetrates this unknown country. And of course, he meets a fairy princess.

Both she and the traveler are beautiful. They fell in love with each other, but the girl considers herself an ugly girl, and all the people consider her ugly, although she loves her for her good heart. And the thing was that the people who inhabited the country were real freaks, but considered themselves handsome. The princess did not look like her compatriots, and she was perceived as an ugly woman.

A brave traveler takes the girl to France, and there she realizes that she is beautiful, and the prince who saved her is also beautiful. But she considered him a freak, like herself, and was very sorry. This work has entertaining good-natured humor, and the plot is somewhat reminiscent of good old fairy tales. All this made the "Blue Star" a significant phenomenon in Russian literature.

In exile, the work of A. I. Kuprin continued to serve Russia. The writer himself lived an intense fruitful life. But every year it became more and more difficult for him. The stock of Russian impressions was running out, and the classic could not merge with foreign reality. The concern for a piece of bread was also important. And therefore it is impossible not to pay tribute to the talented author. Despite the difficult years for himself, he managed to make a significant contribution to Russian literature..

An extremely complex and colorful picture is the life and work of Kuprin. It is difficult to summarize them. The whole experience of life taught him to call for humanity. In all the stories and stories of Kuprin, the same meaning is laid - love for a person.

Childhood

In 1870 in the dull and waterless town of Narovchat, Penza province.

Orphaned very early. When he was one year old, his father, a petty clerk, died. There was nothing remarkable in the city, except for the artisans who made sieves and barrels. The life of the baby went without joys, but there were enough insults. She and her mother went to friends and obsequiously begged for at least a cup of tea. And the "benefactors" put their hand in for a kiss.

Wandering and study

Three years later, in 1873, the mother left for Moscow with her son. She was taken to a widow's house, and her son from the age of 6, in 1876 - to an orphanage. Later, Kuprin would describe these establishments in the stories The Fugitives (1917), Holy Lies, and Retirement. These are all stories about people whom life has mercilessly thrown out. Thus begins the story about the life and work of Kuprin. It's hard to talk about it briefly.

Service

When the boy grew up, they managed to attach him first to a military gymnasium (1880), then to the cadet corps and, finally, to the cadet school (1888). Education was free, but painful.

So the long and joyless 14 war years dragged on with their senseless drills and humiliations. The continuation was an adult service in the regiment, which stood in provincial towns near Podolsk (1890-1894). The first story that A. I. Kuprin publishes, opening the military theme, is “Inquest” (1894), then “Lilac Bush” (1894), “Night Shift” (1899), “Duel” (1904-1905) and others .

Wandering years

In 1894, Kuprin decisively and abruptly changes his life. He retires and lives very poorly. Alexander Ivanovich settled in Kyiv and began to write feuilletons for newspapers, in which he paints the life of the city with colorful strokes. But the knowledge of life was lacking. What did he see besides military service? He was interested in everything. And Balaklava fishermen, and Donetsk factories, and the nature of Polissya, and unloading watermelons, and flying in a balloon, and circus artists. He thoroughly studied the life and way of life of the people who made up the backbone of society. Their language, jargons and customs. The life and work of Kuprin, saturated with impressions, is almost impossible to briefly convey.

Literary activity

It was during these years (1895) that Kuprin became a professional writer, constantly publishing his works in various newspapers. He meets Chekhov (1901) and everyone around him. And earlier he became friends with I. Bunin (1897) and then with M. Gorky (1902). One after another, stories come out that make society shudder. "Moloch" (1896) about the severity of capitalist oppression and the lack of rights of workers. "Duel" (1905), which is impossible to read without anger and shame for the officers.

The writer chastely touches the theme of nature and love. "Olesya" (1898), "Shulamith" (1908), "Garnet Bracelet" (1911) is known to the whole world. He also knows the life of animals: "Emerald" (1911), "Starlings". Around these years, Kuprin can already support his family on literary earnings and get married. He has a daughter. Then he gets divorced, and in his second marriage he also has a daughter. In 1909 Kuprin was awarded the Pushkin Prize. The life and work of Kuprin, briefly described, can hardly fit in a few paragraphs.

Emigration and homecoming

Kuprin did not accept the October Revolution with the flair and heart of the artist. He is leaving the country. But, while publishing abroad, he yearns for his homeland. Bring age and disease. Finally, he nevertheless returned to his beloved Moscow. But, having lived here for a year and a half, he, seriously ill, dies in 1938 at the age of 67 in Leningrad. This is how the life and work of Kuprin end. The summary and description do not convey the bright and rich impressions of his life, reflected on the pages of books.

About the writer's prose and biography

The essay briefly presented in our article suggests that each is the master of his own destiny. When a person is born, he is taken up by the current of life. He brings someone into a stagnant swamp, and leaves it there, someone flounders, trying to somehow cope with the current, and someone just goes with the flow - where he will take it. But there are people, to whom Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin belongs, who stubbornly row against the current all their lives.

Born in a provincial, unremarkable town, he will love him forever and will return to this uncomplicated dusty world of harsh childhood. He will love inexplicably the petty-bourgeois and meager Narovchat.

Maybe for the carved architraves and geraniums on the windows, maybe for the vast fields, or maybe for the smell of dusty earth beaten down by rain. And perhaps this poverty will pull him in his youth, after the army drill, which he experienced for 14 years, to recognize Rus' in the fullness of its colors and dialects. Wherever his paths-roads will not bring him. And to the Polissya forests, and to Odessa, and to metallurgical plants, and to the circus, and in the skies on an airplane, and to unload bricks and watermelons. A person full of inexhaustible love for people, for their way of life, will know everything, and will reflect all his impressions in stories and stories that contemporaries will read and which are not out of date even now, a hundred years after they were written.

How can the young and beautiful Shulamith, the beloved of King Solomon, become old, how can the forest sorceress Olesya stop loving the timid city dweller, how can Sashka the musician from Gambrinus (1907) stop playing. And Artaud (1904) is still devoted to his masters, who love him endlessly. The writer saw all this with his own eyes and left us on the pages of his books so that we could be horrified by the heavy tread of capitalism in Moloch, the nightmarish life of young women in the Pit (1909-1915), the terrible death of the beautiful and innocent Emerald .

Kuprin was a dreamer who loved life. And all the stories passed through his attentive eyes and sensitive intelligent heart. Maintaining friendship with writers, Kuprin never forgot either workers, or fishermen, or sailors, that is, those who are called ordinary people. They were united by inner intelligence, which is given not by education and knowledge, but by the depth of human communication, the ability to sympathize, and natural delicacy. He had a hard time with emigration. In one of his letters he wrote: "The more talented a person is, the more difficult it is for him without Russia." Not considering himself a genius, he simply yearned for his homeland and, upon returning, died after a serious illness in Leningrad.