Garshin Vsevolod Mikhailovich biography for children. Brief biography of Garshin
short biography Garshina grade 4 is described in this article.
Vsevolod Garshin short biography for children
Vsevolod Garshin, whose biography begins on February 2, 1855, was born in the Pleasant Valley estate in the Yekaterinoslav province in the family of a noble officer. Even at the age of five, Garshin experienced a kind of family drama, which had an impact on his health and greatly influenced his character and attitude. His mother fell in love with P. V. Zavadsky, a teacher of older children and an organizer of political secret society. She abandoned her family. Vsevolod's father complained about her to the police and Zavadsky was arrested and exiled to Petrozavodsk. Mother to visit the exile, moved to live in St. Petersburg. Small child became the subject of contention between the parents. Until 1864, he lived with his father, then his mother took him and sent him to a gymnasium in St. Petersburg.
In 1874, Vsevolod Garshin entered the Mining Institute. But art and literature interested him more than science. He began to publish, write essays and art history articles.
In 1877, Russia suddenly declared war on Turkey, and Garshin signed up on the very first day as a volunteer in the army. In one of his first battles, he led a regiment on the attack and was wounded in the leg. The wound was not dangerous, but Vsevolod Garshin no longer took part in further hostilities. He soon retired, promoted to officer. But Vsevolod did not stay long as a free student of St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Philology, he firmly decided for himself to completely surrender literary activity.
Garshin quickly gained fame, his stories were especially popular, in which all military impressions were reflected - these are the stories “Coward”, “Four Days”, “From the Memoirs of Private Ivanov”.
In the early 1880s, the writer's mental illness worsened sharply. Vsevolod Garshin spent about 2 years in a psychiatric hospital in Kharkov.
In 1883, the writer married N. M. Zolotilova, who was a student of women's medical courses. During these years, which Vsevolod Garshin rightfully considered the happiest in his life, he created his best story - this is "The Red Flower".
In 1887, the last work of the writer was published - this is a children's fairy tale "The Frog is a Traveler". Soon another severe depression set in.
In March 1888, the writer, at the age of thirty-three, dies, throwing himself from the height of the 4th floor into a flight of stairs. The writer is buried in St. Petersburg.
Biography and episodes of life Vsevolod Garshin. When born and died Vsevolod Garshin, memorable places and dates of important events in his life. writer quotes, Photo and video.
Years of life of Vsevolod Garshin:
born February 14, 1855, died April 5, 1888
Epitaph
“Whose conscience hurts most deeply for our lies,
Those longer could not drag out life between us.
And we live in darkness, and the darkness has overcome us.
It’s hard for us without you, we are ashamed to live without you!”
From a poem by Nikolai Minsky dedicated to the memory of Garshin
Biography
Dramas and tragedies in the life of Vsevolod Garshin began from early childhood. Already at the age of five, he became an unwitting participant in the family alteration. Vsevolod's mother, a typical sixties woman, fell in love with the leader of the revolutionary movement Pyotr Zavadsky and left the family, taking her young son with her. Garshin's father, a representative of an old noble family, did not want to endure betrayal and complained about Zavadsky to the police. As a result of the denunciation, the latter was sent into exile, and the woman, in order to stay closer to her lover, followed him and settled in St. Petersburg. Of course, these events were reflected in the later life of Vsevolod Garshin, significantly affecting his health and worldview.
Entering the Mining Institute, Vsevolod never finishes his studies. He goes to the army and gets wounded in a combat battle. Although the wound was not serious, military service had to be forgotten. Having received an officer's rank, he has to retire. After being discharged from the army, Garshin attends lectures at St. Petersburg University for some time, and then decides to devote himself exclusively to literary activity.
In 1877, Vsevolod Garshin became famous when he made his debut with his work Four Days. In the story, the author expresses a sincere protest against violence, war and the extermination of man by man. In the future, he wrote a number of works devoted to this topic. Peru Garshin also owns fairy tales for children, which, in fact, still carry main idea- the need to fight injustice in this world.
But while Garshin's writing reputation is growing and getting stronger, the writer's mental health is only getting worse. So, after the public execution of Prince Molodetsky, whose views Garshin was an adherent of, anxiety states begin to visit him. The Russian prose writer spends about two years in a psychiatric hospital, and the depression seems to be receding. After leaving the hospital, Garshin marries, and calls the following years the happiest in his life. It was during this period that his best story, “The Red Flower,” came out from under his pen.
True, Garshin's happiness does not last long: bouts of longing again overcome him. On April 5, 1888, in a depressed state, the writer attempts suicide - he throws himself into a flight of stairs from the fourth floor. However, he does not die immediately, but falls into a coma for several days. Garshin's death occurred on the fifth day of the coma, the cause of Garshin's death was injuries received from the fall. The funeral of Vsevolod Garshin took place at the Literary bridges of the Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg.
life line
February 14, 1855 Date of birth of Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin.
1864 Admission to the St. Petersburg 7th gymnasium.
1872 Transition to a real school.
1874 Admission to the Mining Institute.
1877 Creative debut: the release of the story "Four days".
1882 Entering the civil service at the Gostiny Dvor.
1883 Marriage with Nadezhda Zolotilova.
1885 The beginning of cooperation with the publishing house "Posrednik".
March 30, 1888 Suicide attempt.
April 5, 1888 Date of Garshin's death.
April 7, 1888 Date of Garshin's funeral.
Memorable places
1. The village of Bakhmutskoye, Yekaterinoslav province (now Donetsk region), where Garshin was born.
2. Mining University in St. Petersburg, where Vsevolod Garshin studied.
3. The village of Pereezdnoye, where the estate-museum of Vsevolod Garshin and the monument to Garshin are located.
4. Monument to Garshin in Starobelsk (at the intersection of Oktyabrskaya and Chernyshevsky streets).
5. "Literary Bridges" in St. Petersburg, where Garshin is buried.
Episodes of life
It is believed that it was the outstanding prose writer Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin who legitimized the novel genre in Russian literature. Subsequently, Anton Chekhov chose this artistic genre to realize his literary ideas.
Start literary creativity Garshin falls at the height of the struggle between the populists and the autocracy. The tense revolutionary reality had a hard effect on the poor health of an already impressionable writer. Vsevolod Garshin fell into prolonged depression every time he learned about a new state reprisal against another revolutionary.
Covenant
"Often one powerful artistic image puts into our soul more than it has been gained by many years of life; we realize that the best and most precious part of our self does not belong to us, but to that spiritual milk, to which the powerful hand of creativity brings us closer.
The plot of the writer Vsevolod Garshin
condolences
“We are ashamed to live without him.”
Nikolai Minsky, poet
“He has a special talent - human. He had a fine, magnificent instinct for pain in general."
Anton Chekhov, writer
Garshin Vsevolod Mikhailovich is an outstanding Russian prose writer. Born on February 2, 1855 in the Pleasant Valley estate of the Yekaterinoslav province (now Donetsk region, Ukraine) in a noble officer family. As a five-year-old child, Garshin experienced a family drama that affected his health and greatly influenced his attitude and character. His mother fell in love with the teacher of older children, P.V. Zavadsky, the organizer of a secret political society, and left her family. The father complained to the police, Zavadsky was arrested and exiled to Petrozavodsk. Mother moved to Petersburg to visit the exile. The child became the subject of acute contention between the parents. Until 1864 he lived with his father, then his mother took him to St. Petersburg and sent him to a gymnasium. In 1874 Garshin entered the Mining Institute. But literature and art interested him more than science. He begins to print, writes essays and art history articles. In 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey; Garshin on the very first day is recorded as a volunteer in the army. In one of his first battles, he led the regiment into the attack and was wounded in the leg. The wound turned out to be harmless, but Garshin no longer took part in further hostilities. Promoted to an officer, he soon retired, spent a short time as a volunteer in the philological faculty of St. Petersburg University, and then devoted himself entirely to literary activity. Garshin quickly gained fame, especially popular were the stories that reflected his military impressions - "Four Days", "Coward", "From the Memoirs of Private Ivanov". In the early 80s. the writer's mental illness worsened (it was a hereditary disease, and it manifested itself when Garshin was still a teenager); the aggravation was largely caused by the execution of the revolutionary Mlodetsky, for whom Garshin tried to stand up to the authorities. He spent about two years in a Kharkov psychiatric hospital. In 1883, the writer marries N.M. Zolotilova, a student of women's medical courses. During these years, which Garshin considered the happiest in his life, his best story, "The Red Flower", was created. In 1887, the last work was published - the children's fairy tale "The Traveler Frog". But very soon another severe depression sets in. On March 24, 1888, during one of the attacks, Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin commits suicide - he rushes into the flight of stairs. The writer is buried in St. Petersburg.
Source: internet
What was not.
One fine June day - and it was beautiful because it was
twenty-eight degrees Réaumur - one fine day in June it was
it's hot everywhere, but in a clearing in the garden, where there was a shock of recently cut hay,
it was even hotter, because the place was closed from the wind, thick, thick
cherry. Everything was almost asleep: people were full and engaged in afternoon side
classes; the birds fell silent, even many insects hid from the heat. O
there is nothing to say about domestic animals: large and small cattle hid under a canopy;
the dog, having dug a hole for himself under the barn, lay down there and, half-closing his eyes,
breathed intermittently, sticking out her pink tongue almost half an arshin; sometimes she
obviously from the anguish that comes from the deadly heat, she yawned so much that at the same time
even a thin screech was heard; pigs, mother with thirteen children,
went ashore and lay down in the black greasy mud, and from the mud you can see
there were only snuffling and snoring pig snouts with two holes,
oblong, mud-drenched backs and huge drooping ears. Only chickens, no
afraid of the heat, they somehow killed time, raking the dry earth with their paws against
kitchen porch, which, as they well knew, was no longer
grain; and even then the rooster must have had a bad time, because sometimes he
took on a stupid look and shouted at the top of his voice: "what a ska-an-da-al !!"
So we left the clearing, which is the hottest, and in this clearing and
sat a whole society of sleepless gentlemen. That is, not everyone was sitting; old
bay, for example, with a danger to their sides from the whip of the coachman Anton
raking a haystack, being a horse, did not know how to sit at all; caterpillar
some kind of butterfly didn’t sit either, but rather lay on its stomach: but it’s not about
word. A small but very serious company gathered under the cherry tree: a snail,
dung beetle, lizard, aforementioned caterpillar; jumped the grasshopper. Near
the old bay man also stood, listening to their speeches alone, turned to them,
a bay ear with dark gray hair sticking out from the inside; and two were sitting on the bay
flies.
The company argued politely, but quite animatedly, and, as it should
be, no one agreed with anyone, since everyone valued independence
own opinion and character.
“In my opinion,” said the dung beetle, “a decent animal is first of all
should take care of their offspring. Life is work for the future generation.
He who consciously performs the duties assigned to him by nature, he
stands on solid ground: he knows his business, and no matter what happens, he does not
will be in the answer. Look at me: who works harder than me? who all day
without rest rolls such a heavy ball - a ball that I have so skillfully created from
dung, with the great purpose of giving the opportunity to grow new, like me, dung
beetles? But on the other hand, I don’t think that anyone was so calm in conscience and with a pure
I could say with my heart: "Yes, I did everything I could and should have done," as
I will tell you when new dung beetles come into the world. That's what labor means!
- Come on, brother, with your work! - said the ant, dragging in time
the speech of a dung beetle, despite the heat, a monstrous piece of dry stalk. He
stopped for a minute, sat down on four hind legs, and with two front legs
sweat from his exhausted face. - And I'm working, and more than yours. Notes
you work for yourself or, anyway, for your bugs; not everyone is so happy...
you would try to carry logs for the treasury, that's how I am. I myself don't know what
makes me work, exhausted, even in this heat. — no one for
that won't say thank you. We, the unfortunate worker ants, are all working, and what
red is our life? Fate!..
- You, dung beetle, are too dry, and you, ant, look too gloomy
for life,” the grasshopper retorted. - No, beetle, I still like to crackle and
jump and nothing! Conscience does not hurt! And besides, you did not touch
question posed by the lady lizard: she asked, "What is the world?", and you
talk about your dung ball; it's not even polite. The world is the world, in my opinion, very
a good thing already because it has young grass for us, sun and
breeze. And yes, he is great! You are here between these trees, you cannot have
no idea how big it is. When I am in the field, I sometimes
I jump as high as I can, and I assure you, I reach a great height. And
I see from her that the world has no end.
"That's right," the bay confirmed sagely. - But all of you still do not
see a hundredth part of what I have seen in my lifetime. Wish you can
to understand what a verst is ... A verst from here is the village of Luparevka: there I
Every day I go with a barrel for water. But they never feed me there. And on the other
the sides of Efimovka, Kislyakovka; it has a church with bells. And then
Holy Trinity, and then Bogoyavlensk. In Bogoyavlensk they always give me hay, but
the hay is bad. But in Nikolaev - this is such a city, twenty-eight miles
from here - so there is better hay and oats, only I don’t like to go there: there
the master rides on us and orders the coachman to drive, and the coachman beats us painfully
with a whip ... And then there is also Aleksandrovka, Belozerka, Kherson-city too ... Yes
only how can you understand all this!.. This is what the world is; not all, let's say, well
yes, it's still a big part.
And the bay fell silent, but his lower lip still moved, as though he
whispered something. This came from old age: he was already seventeen years old, and
for a horse it is the same as for a man seventy-seventh.
- I don’t understand your tricky horse words, yes, I confess, and I’m not chasing
behind them,” said the snail. - I would have a burdock, but it is enough: now I
I have been crawling for four days, but it still does not end. And behind this burdock there is another burdock,
and in that burdock, probably, there is still a snail sitting. That's all for you. And jump nowhere
necessary - all this is fiction and trifles; sit and eat the sheet on which you sit.
If it were not for laziness to crawl, I would have left you long ago with your conversations; from them
headache and nothing else.
- No, please, why? - interrupted the grasshopper, - crackle very
nice, especially about such good subjects as infinity and such.
Of course, there are practical natures who only care about how
fill your stomach, like you or this lovely caterpillar ...
“Ah, no, leave me, I beg you, leave me, don’t touch me! - plaintively
exclaimed the caterpillar: “I am doing this for the future life, only for the future
life.
- What kind of future life is there? asked the bay.
“Don’t you know that after death I will become a butterfly with multi-colored
wings?
The bay, the lizard, and the snail did not know this, but the insects had some
concept. And everyone was silent for a while, because no one knew how to say anything.
good about the future life.
"Strong convictions must be treated with respect," the
grasshopper. "Does anyone want to say anything else?" Maybe you? —
he turned to the flies, and the eldest of them answered:
We can't say that we were bad. We are now only out of the rooms;
the lady put the boiled jam in the bowls, and we climbed under the lid and
ate. We are glad. Our mother is bogged down in jam, but what can we do? She is already
quite old in the world. And we are satisfied.
“Gentlemen,” said the lizard, “I think you are all quite right! Nose
the other side...
But the lizard never said what happened on the other side, because
She felt something firmly press her tail to the ground.
It was Anton, the waking coachman, who came for the bay; he accidentally stepped on his
boot on the company and crushed it. Some flies flew away to suck their
dead, smeared with jam, mother, but the lizard ran away with a torn
tail. Anton took the bay by the forelock and led him out of the garden to harness him to a barrel
and go for water, and kept saying: "Well, go you tail!", to which the bay
answered only with a whisper.
And the lizard was left without a tail. True, after a while he grew up,
but forever remained somehow dull and blackish. And when the lizard was asked
as she injured her tail, she answered modestly:
- I was torn off because I decided to express my convictions.
And she was absolutely right.
// May 27, 2010 // Views: 20 581Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin (1855-1888) - Russian prose writer and poet, art critic. The writer is of Ukrainian origin. He was born on February 2 (14), 1855 in the Pleasant Valley estate, located on the territory of the modern Donetsk region. His colleague, including Anton Pavlovich Chekhov and Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, spoke warmly about the writer's work. They said that Vsevolod could live and create for a long time if they managed to protect him from world injustice and pain, reduce sensitivity.
noble family
The parents of the future writer were noblemen. According to the legends, their family descended from Murza Garshi, who was a native of the Golden Horde. Garshin's mother was an intellectual, she was interested in literature and politics, she spoke several languages. The boy's father, Mikhail Yegorovich, was a military man. Colleagues often came to him, they shared stories about the defense of Sevastopol. In such an environment, Seva's childhood passed.
At the age of five, the boy experienced a family drama. His mother fell in love with teacher P.V. Zavadsky, who was a famous revolutionary. Peter also organized a secret political society. His mother fled to him, but Mikhail Yegorovich complained to law enforcement agencies. The lover was arrested, he was exiled to Petrozavodsk. The woman moved to St. Petersburg to be closer to her loved one.
Seva acutely took what happened due to early mental development, his health and psyche deteriorated. Subsequently, the writer often had bouts of nervous breakdown. After the separation of his parents, Garshin stayed with his father, but in 1864 his mother took him away and sent him to a St. Petersburg gymnasium.
Youth and first works
Since 1864, the prose writer studied at gymnasium No. 7 in St. Petersburg. In 1874 he graduated and became a student at the Mining Institute. There he became interested in literature, began to write essays and articles on art history. But Seva did not manage to get a diploma. During his studies in 1877, the Russian-Turkish war began, and the young man went voluntarily into the army. There he managed to rise to the rank of officer, but then he was wounded, as a result of which he retired.
It was after the army that Garshin came to grips with literature. His first story was called "Four Days", it became available to readers in 1876, and immediately gained popularity. In this work, Vsevolod Mikhailovich defended his views, protested against the war, the destruction of people by each other. Subsequently, this topic was often raised in the stories of the writer. Sometimes evil and injustice were considered not against the background of the war, but in ordinary essays about peaceful life.
In 1883, the second work of the prose writer was published under the title "Red Flower". In this work, he tried to explore the role of art in the life of mankind, criticized the theory of "pure art". It is the "Red Flower" that is considered one of the first examples of the novel genre. Later this genre was developed by Anton Chekhov.
Last years
Like many creative people, Vsevolod reacted emotionally to any shocks. Social injustice caused him the greatest pain. In 1880, the prose writer witnessed the death penalty of the revolutionary Mlodetsky. This death was a blow to the writer also for the reason that he had previously tried to stand up for the young man. For two years he was treated in a psychiatric hospital after such stress. But he did not manage to completely get rid of the impressions.
After treatment, Garshin continued to have seizures. During one of them, he jumped from the stairs into the flight, receiving many injuries. From March 31 to April 1, 1888, the writer remained unconscious, after which he died. Vsevolod Mikhailovich was buried at Literary Bridges, a necropolis museum located in St. Petersburg.
Other facts from life
From childhood, the prose writer absorbed democratic ideas thanks to his tutor P. Zavadsky. He had special respect for the works of the Sovremennik publishing house. Because of his views, Garshin often faced misunderstanding. His depressive writings were used as an example on the theme of "the hard life of the intelligentsia."
Vsevolod Mikhailovich was often criticized, he received real recognition after the war. Ten years after its completion, the portrait of the prose writer was printed on stamps. Some time later, his tales were added to school curriculum. Now they are studied in the fourth grade of high school.
The writer has always supported painting, especially the Wanderers. It was he who posed for several paintings by Repin, including for the famous work "Ivan the Terrible kills his son." The artist also painted a portrait of Vsevolod. He managed to accurately convey not only facial features, but also Garshin's emotions. The sad but gentle eyes stood out especially.
In 1883, the writer married N.M. Zolotilova, at that time she was a student of women's medical courses. The years spent with the woman he loved were the happiest in Garshin's life. It was then that his best stories were born.
The most famous works of Garshin were the stories "Batman and Officer", "Nadezhda Nikolaevna", "Coward" and "Incident". The children loved his fairy tales, including "The Thing That Wasn't There" and "The Traveling Frog". Based on the last work, a cartoon was even made. The book "Signal" became the basis for the first children's film released in the USSR.
(1855-1888) Russian writer
Even during his lifetime, the name of Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin among the Russian intelligentsia, the concept of "a man of the Garshin warehouse" became widespread. What did it include? First of all, the light and attractive that contemporaries who knew the writer saw and that readers guessed, recreating the image of the author from his stories. The beauty of his inner appearance was combined with his outer beauty. Garshin was alien to both asceticism and dull moralism. During the period of mental and physical health, he acutely felt the joy of life, loved society, nature, knew the joy of simple physical labor.
The thirst for life, the ability to feel and understand everything beautiful in it was one of the reasons for that heightened rejection of evil and ugliness, which Garshin expressed in deep sadness and almost physical suffering. This deep sadness about the imperfection of the world and people, the ability to be imbued with someone else's pain, someone else's suffering, as if it were one's own, was the second feature of the "man of the Garshin warehouse."
Vsevolod Garshin was born on the estate of his maternal grandmother, which was called Pleasant Valley and was located in the Bakhmut district of the Yekaterinoslav province, His early years took place in the small town of Starobelsk. Garshin's father, Mikhail Yegorovich, was an officer. A humane, gentle man, he had a reputation as a kind and fair commander. True, in everyday life he was not without some oddities and was unable to establish his own family life. The mother of Vsevolod Garshin, Ekaterina Stepanovna, was carried away by the teacher of her sons P. Zavadsky and left her husband, but he managed to take revenge on her and his rival. According to his denunciation, P. Zavadsky, a member of the Kharkov revolutionary circle, was arrested and exiled. Searches were also carried out several times at Ekaterina Stepanovna's house. The situation in the house was very difficult. “Some scenes,” Garshin later recalled, “left an indelible memory in me and, perhaps, traces on the character. The sad expression prevailing on my face probably got its start in that era.
He was then in his fifth year. The mother with her older sons left for St. Petersburg, and Vsevolod remained in the village with his father. Much later, in the story "Night", he wrote several autobiographical lines about this time, which his mother could never forgive him. In them, he lovingly turned to the memory of his father, wrote that he wanted to go back to childhood and caress this downtrodden person.
In the summer of 1863, his mother took Vsevolod to Petersburg as well. From a secluded, quiet environment, the boy ended up in a not at all rich, but noisy, never empty St. Petersburg apartment: Ekaterina Stepanovna loved people and knew how to gather them around her. Vsevolod Garshin entered the gymnasium. His mother soon left for Kharkov, leaving him first in the care of his older brothers, and then, after the gymnasium boarding school, in a family of acquaintances.
Vsevolod Garshin spent ten years at the gymnasium, of which he was ill for two years (even then he began to show symptoms of mental illness) and once remained in the same class for another year.
As a high school student, Vsevolod Garshin began to write feuilletons, poems, published in gymnasium publications. In the last year of the teenager's stay at the gymnasium, it was transformed into a real school, and those who graduated from a real school, according to the laws of that time, could only study further in engineering. Garshin was fond of natural sciences and wanted to enter the Medical and Surgical Academy, but the new decree deprived him of this opportunity. In 1874 he became a student at the Mining Institute.
It was a time of social activity of student youth, unprecedented in Russia until then. Almost all higher educational establishments were seized by revolutionary ferment, which was brutally suppressed. Nevertheless, young people actively fought for their rights and sensitively reacted to all the most important social and political problems.
Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin was aloof from these events, for him it was a period of painful search for his path in life. In November 1874, shortly after the unrest at the Mining Institute, in connection with which two hundred students were expelled and one and a half hundred were exiled, Vsevolod wrote to his mother: “On the one hand, the authorities, grabbing and exiling, looking at you like cattle, and not on a person, on the other - a society, busy with its own affairs, treated with contempt, almost with hatred ... Where to go, what to do? The vile ones walk on their hind legs, the stupid ones crowd into Nechaevs, and so on. to Siberia, the smart ones are silent and suffer. They are the worst. Suffering from without and from within. It's bad, my dear mother, in my soul.
However creative work Garshin in student years becomes more intense. He writes poetry, and in 1876 his essay "The True History of the Ensk Zemstvo Assembly" appeared for the first time in print. It painted a caustic satirical picture of the manners of Zemstvo liberals.
In those same years, Vsevolod Garshin became close to a group of young artists. A passionate and interested attitude to art prompted him to write a series of articles on painting, in which he reflected on the essence of the artist's activity, on the purpose of art. One of the strongest artistic impressions of those years was an exhibition of paintings by the Russian battle painter Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin. Garshin was shocked by the depiction of military scenes. And soon he himself had to take part in what caused him such horror and disgust.
In April 1877, Russia declared war on Turkey, and Vsevolod Garshin volunteered for the army. “I can’t,” he writes to his mother, “hide behind the walls of an institution when my peers expose their foreheads and chests to bullets.” He was enlisted as a private in an infantry regiment. Here, in the war, he deeply comprehended the character of a simple Russian man, his heroism and selfless service to the ideals of brotherhood. During the war, the social contradictions of Russian reality were even more clearly revealed to Garshin.
In the battle near Ayaslar, he was wounded in the leg, was treated for a long time and, upon recovery, retired. This is what it looked like from the outside military career Garshin. But her internal result was much more significant. The war and the impressions it caused became one of the main themes of Garshin's work. While still in the army, he begins to write the story "Four Days", finishes it in Kharkov during his convalescence and sends it to the journal "Domestic Notes". The story was a tremendous success and immediately made the name of its author widely known.
A year later, Vsevolod Garshin publishes a new story called A Very Short Novel. Here, as in other works of the writer, the same motives sound: pain for a person, grief for the hopelessness of this pain, endless compassion. Already in the first stories of Garshin, the heightened sense of humanity inherent in his work was manifested, that feature of his talent, which was noted by Chekhov, was revealed. In his short story “The Seizure” about the student Vasiliev, whose prototype was Garshin, we read: “There are writing, stage, artistic talents, but he has a special talent - human. He has a subtle, wonderful sense of pain in general. Just as a good actor reflects other people's movements and voices in himself, so Vasiliev knows how to reflect someone else's pain in his soul. Seeing tears, he cries; near the patient, he himself becomes ill and groans; if he sees violence, then it seems to him that violence is being committed against him ... ”This property of Garshin’s talent made him turn to one of the most acute social topics - prostitution.
The story "The Incident", which appeared in print in 1878, was not the first in Russian literature to reflect this problem. Writers have already created a certain tradition in the approach to this "social ulcer". Vsevolod Garshin generally remains in line with the same tradition. However, his heroine is not a typical product of her environment, she is much taller than her. The fate of this woman is the tragedy of an extraordinary person who found himself in more than ordinary circumstances. In essence, as Garshin shows and as the heroine herself thinks, there is not much difference between prostitution and many marriages that are not for love.
Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin does not give his heroes the opportunity to correct mistakes and be happy. He makes the highest demands on them. The words of G. Uspensky about writing work are applicable to Garshin: “I want to torment and torment the reader because this determination will give me in time the right to talk about the most urgent and greatest torments experienced by this very reader ...” But Garshin himself suffered no less, as his own confession says: "The writer suffers for everyone he writes about."
He published many of his works in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, headed by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Garshin did not always share his ideas, but nevertheless he felt his spiritual closeness to this magazine, on the pages of which the problems of modern social life were truthfully and honestly covered.
Meanwhile, the writer's state of mind was deteriorating, more and more attacks of melancholy were found on him. In the winter of 1880, he wrote the story "Night", in which he expresses the moods and feelings of many of his contemporaries.
By the beginning of the 80s, Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin became one of the most popular Russian writers. The younger generation considers him the ruler of thoughts. After each student evening, if Garshin was present, he was inevitably rocked in his arms. When he appeared in the theater or at a public lecture, approving whispers ran through the hall. Portraits of the writer could be found in the albums of students, female students and high school students.
Vsevolod Garshin wrote hard and slowly. But each of his stories left an indelible mark on the minds of readers. Meanwhile, his personal and creative life was already on the verge of a severe crisis, which was due to both external and internal reasons.
The social situation in the country remained difficult, unrest among the youth continued, workers went on strike. In 1880, Count M. Loris-Melikov was appointed head of the Supreme Administrative Commission. A few days after his appointment, a Narodnaya Volya member I. Mlodetsky shot at him. The count remained alive, and Mlodetsky was arrested and sentenced to death. Garshin was shocked by both the assassination attempt and the verdict. He writes a letter to Loris-Melikov with a request to "forgive" Mlodetsky and takes it himself. Garshin came to the house of Loris-Melikov late at night, they did not want to let him in, then they searched him, but in the end the count nevertheless accepted him.
There is no exact data on the content of their conversation. It is only known that Loris-Melikov promised Garshin to review the case and did not keep his word. Mlodetsky was hanged, after which Garshin finally lost his peace of mind and peace. He left for Moscow, then rushed to Rybinsk, then returned to Moscow again, visited Tula, Yasnaya Polyana with L.N. Tolstoy, with whom he spoke about the reorganization of life, about saving people from injustice and evil, went to Kharkov, but did not get there. Relatives, alarmed by the disappearance of Garshin, found him in the Oryol province, where the writer was already in a semi-mad state. Garshin's severe mental illness forced his relatives to place him first in a Kharkov hospital for the mentally ill, and then in a private hospital in St. Petersburg. The patient's condition improved somewhat, and he settled in his uncle's estate, where he began to recover.
The life of Vsevolod Garshin recent years not rich in external events. literary work did not provide sufficient livelihood, and the writer was forced to serve.
The charm of his personality was so great that he easily found friends. One of them was the wonderful Russian artist Ilya Repin, who painted the son of Ivan the Terrible from Vsevolod Garshin for his famous painting "Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan." Repin said that he was always struck by the seal of doom on Garshin's face. And he was not wrong.
Mental illness again attacked the writer, he plunges into depression, experiences an overwhelming longing. On March 19, 1888, Garshin threw himself into a flight of stairs, and a few days later, on March 24, he died. His death became a public event, thousands of people came to bury the writer.
The fate of Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin seemed to personify the fate of a whole generation. After his tragic death, in order to honor the memory of the writer and create a fund for the construction of a monument to him, it was decided to publish a collection of his memory. At the request of A.N. Pleshcheev to write a story in this collection Anton Pavlovich Chekhov replied: "... I love such people as the late Garshin with all my heart and consider it my duty to sign in sympathy for them." Chekhov said that he had a topic for a story, the hero of which would be "a young man of Garshin sourdough, remarkable, honest and deeply sensitive."