V P Astafiev's children's biography. Biographies of writers and poets
(1924) - prose writer.
Viktor Astafiev was born in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and now lives in his homeland in the city of Krasnoyarsk.
The writer's childhood was difficult. The boy was only seven years old when his mother died. She drowned in the Yenisei. He will dedicate the story “The Pass” to the memory of his mother, Lydia Ilyinichna.
Astafiev even visited street children and was brought up in an orphanage. Here, kind, intelligent teachers aroused his interest in writing. One of his school essay recognized as the best. This work has a very characteristic title: “Alive!” Later, the events described in it appeared in the story “Vasyutkino Lake”. Of course, in new form, in a writer's way.
In the spring of 1943, worker Viktor Astafiev was already at the front, on the front line. Military rank - private. And so on until victory: driver, artillery reconnaissance officer, signalman.
After the war, the future writer changed many professions, rushed, as he himself would say, to different jobs, until in 1951 the first story was published in the newspaper Chusovskoy Rabochiy, and he became a newspaper literary employee.
This is where his actual creative biography begins.
Then he graduated from the Higher Literary Courses, and in the mid-fifties, the famous critic Alexander Makarov already spoke about the recognition of Astafiev as a writer and accurately outlined the artist’s main creative aspirations: “reflection on our life, on the purpose of man on earth and in society and his moral principles, about the Russian national character... by nature he is a moralist and a poet of humanity."
The works created by Astafiev are well known. These are books about war, about peace, about childhood, numerous stories and stories “The Pass”, “Starodub”, “Theft”, “Starfall”, “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess”, “The Last Bow”.
A real event in literature was the work “The Fish King. Narration in Stories” (1972-1975).
The author is not a curious collector of geographical information, but a person who, from childhood, has known the harsh sadness of the northern land and has not forgotten or lost faith in its beauty and truth. And one of the leading characters of the “Narration” - Akim, Akimka, “Pan? - was born and raised in the Arctic, and therefore knows him well.
Much in the story is admirable. Painting, the richness of colors, the scope, violence and prowess of language, the gift of realistic description create the highest authenticity. The talent for creating characters so colorful and visible that it seems worth going and you will meet them on the banks of the Yenisei: Akimka, Kolya, Commander, Roaring...
"The King Fish? is written in an open, free, relaxed manner. Direct, honest, fearless conversation about current and significant problems: about the establishment and improvement of reasonable connections modern man and nature, about the extent and goals of our activity in the “conquest” of nature. This is not only an environmental problem, but also a moral one; what to do to preserve and increase earthly wealth, how to save and enrich the beauty of nature. Awareness of the seriousness of this problem is necessary for everyone, so as not to trample or damage nature and oneself with the fire of soullessness and deafness. The Commander also rumbled with the stupid poaching or the cold, rational egoism of Goga Gertsev.
The moral dispute between Goga Gertsev and Akim is not just a dispute between two too different people, it reflects the collision of a soulless consumerism and a humane, merciful attitude towards nature, towards everything living on earth. The writer states: whoever is merciless and cruel to nature is merciless and cruel to man. The writer's passionate protest is caused by the soulless consumerist treatment of nature, the predatory behavior of humans in the taiga, on the river.
The natural world also contains within itself the spirit of just retribution. The suffering of the King Fish, wounded by man, cries out for him.
The author's attention is focused on people, their destinies, passions and concerns. There are many heroes in the story: good and evil, fair and treacherous, fisheries inspectors and poachers. The writer does not judge them, even the most inveterate, he cares about their spiritual healing.
The author speaks from the position of goodness, he remains a poet of humanity, he has an extraordinary sense of integrity and interconnectedness of all life on earth, present and future, today and tomorrow.
The future is children. That is why there is such concern: “Here is the saying: children are happiness, children are joy, children are the light in the window! But children are also our torment! Our eternal anxiety! Children are our judgment on the world, our mirror in which conscience ", intelligence, honesty, our neatness - it's all there to see. Children can hide behind us, but we can never hide behind them."
Let's remember the story "Ear on Boganida". From the memory of the past, from the distant blue spaces, this island of life arises on the northern land. Post-war time. People live poorly and meagerly. With merciless truthfulness, Astafiev describes the life of fishermen. But nowhere, not in a single line does the author appeal to feelings of bitterness and sadness. On the contrary, the story is warmed by love and trust in people of difficult fate, who collectively raised and warmed children, instilling a healthy, work ethic in their souls. The author sees the true course of life in this.
Goodness and justice are directly addressed to the fate of future generations.
In a frantic struggle against everything dark, against soulless and predatory individualism, a person will arrange his life with the generosity and love of a true master. And as a poetic symbol of perseverance in the struggle of life, a modest taiga flower lives in the story - the Turukhansk lily. “The Turukhansk lily was not planted with hands, it was not cared for. It was filled with the icy juice of eternal snows, fogs, pale night and never-setting sun guarded its solitude... I can’t guess what happened. But I found a flower on the distant deserted shore of Nizhnyaya Tunguska. It is blooming and will never stop blooming in my memory."
On May 1, 1924, in the village of Ovsyanka, on the banks of the Yenisei, not far from Krasnoyarsk, a son, Victor, was born into the family of Pyotr Pavlovich and Lydia Ilyinichna Astafiev.
At the age of seven, the boy lost his mother - she drowned in the river, her scythe caught on the base of a boom. V.P. Astafiev will never get used to this loss. He still “can’t believe that mom is not here and never will be.” His grandmother, Ekaterina Petrovna, becomes the boy’s protector and nurse.
With his father and stepmother, Victor moves to Igarka - his dispossessed grandfather Pavel was exiled here with his family. The “wild earnings” that the father was counting on did not turn out to be, the relationship with the stepmother did not work out, she pushes the burden of the child off her shoulders. The boy loses his shelter and means of livelihood, wanders, and then ends up in an orphanage. “I began my independent life immediately, without any preparation,” V.P. Astafiev would later write.
The boarding school teacher, Siberian poet Ignatiy Dmitrievich Rozhdestvensky, notices a penchant for literature in Victor and develops it. An essay about a favorite lake, published in a school magazine, will later develop into the story “Vasyutkino Lake.”
After graduating from boarding school, the teenager earns his bread at Kureika’s machine. “My childhood remained in the distant Arctic,” V.P. Astafiev would write years later. - The child, in the words of grandfather Pavel, “not born, not asked for, abandoned by mom and dad,” also disappeared somewhere, or rather, rolled away from me. A stranger to himself and everyone, a teenager or young man entered the adult working life of wartime.”
Collecting money for a ticket. Viktor leaves for Krasnoyarsk, and also enters the FZO. “I didn’t choose the group and profession in the FZO - they chose me themselves,” the writer will later tell. After graduating, he works as a train compiler at the Bazaikha station near Krasnoyarsk.
In the fall of 1942, Viktor Astafiev volunteered to join the army, and in the spring of 1943 he went to the front. He is fighting in Bryansk. Voronezh and Steppe fronts, which later united into the First Ukrainian. The front-line biography of soldier Astafiev was awarded the Order of the Red Star, medals “For Courage”, “For Victory over Germany” and “For the Liberation of Poland”. He was seriously wounded several times.
In the fall of 1945, V.P. Astafiev was demobilized from the army and together with his wife, private Maria Semyonovna Koryakina, came to her homeland - the city of Chusovoy in the western Urals.
Due to health reasons, Victor can no longer return to his profession and, in order to feed his family, he works as a mechanic, laborer, loader, carpenter, meat washer, and meat processing plant watchman.
In March 1947, a daughter was born into a young family. At the beginning of September, the girl died from severe dyspepsia - it was a hungry time, her mother did not have enough milk, and there was nowhere to get food cards.
In May 1948, the Astafievs had a daughter, Irina, and in March 1950, a son, Andrei.
In 1951, having once attended a literary circle class at the Chusovskoy Rabochiy newspaper, Viktor Petrovich wrote the story “A Civilian” in one night; subsequently he will call him “Sibiryak”. From 1951 to 1955, Astafiev worked as a literary employee of the Chusovskoy Rabochiy newspaper.
In 1953, his first book of stories, “Until Next Spring,” was published in Perm, and in 1955, his second, “Ogonki.” These are stories for children. In 1955-1957 he wrote the novel “The Snow is Melting”, published two more books for children: “Vasyutkino Lake” (1956) and “Uncle Kuzya, Chickens, Fox and Cat” (1957), published essays and stories in the anthology “Prikamye” ", the magazine "Smena", the collections "There Were Hunters" and "Signs of the Times".
Since April 1957, Astafiev has been a special correspondent for the Perm Regional Radio. In 1958, his novel “The Snow is Melting” was published. V. P. Astafiev is accepted into the Writers' Union of the RSFSR.
In 1959, he was sent to the Higher Literary Courses at the M. Gorky Literary Institute. He has been studying in Moscow for two years.
The end of the 50s was marked by the heyday of the lyrical prose of V. P. Astafiev. The stories “The Pass” (1958-1959) and “Starodub” (1960), the story “Starfall”, written in one breath in just a few days (1960), bring him wide fame.
In 1962 the family moved to Perm, and in 1969 to Vologda.
The 60s were extremely fruitful for the writer: the story “Theft” (1961-1965) was written, short stories that later formed the story in the stories “The Last Bow”: “Zorka’s Song” (1960), “Geese in the Hollow” (1961), “ The Smell of Hay" (1963), "Trees Grow for Everyone" (1964), "Uncle Philip - Ship Mechanic" (1965), "Monk in New Pants" (1966), "Autumn Sadness and Joy" (1966), "Night dark-dark"(1967), "Last bow" (1967), "War is thundering somewhere" (1967), "Photograph in which I am not" (1968), "Grandma's holiday" (1968). In 1968, the story “The Last Bow” was published in Perm as a separate book.
During the Vologda period of his life, V.P. Astafiev created two plays: “Bird cherry” and “Forgive me.” Performances based on these plays were performed on the stage of a number of Russian theaters.
Back in 1954, Astafiev conceived the story “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess. Modern Pastoral” is “my favorite brainchild.” And he realized his plan almost 15 years later - in three days, “completely stunned and happy,” having written “a draft of one hundred and twenty pages” and then polishing the text. Written in 1967, the story had a difficult time in print and was first published in the magazine “Our Contemporary”, No. 8, 1971. The writer returned to the text of the story in 1971 and 1989, restoring what had been removed for censorship reasons.
In 1975, for the stories “The Pass”, “The Last Bow”, “Theft”, “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess” V.P. Astafiev was awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR named after M. Gorky.
In the 60s, V. P. Astafiev wrote the stories “The Old Horse” (1960), “What are you crying about, spruce tree” (1961). “Hands of the Wife” (1961), “Sashka Lebedev” (1961), “Anxious Dream” (1964), “India” (1965), “Mityai from the Dredger” (1967), “Yashka the Elk” (1967), “ Blue Twilight" (1967), "Take and Remember" (1967), "Is It a Clear Day" (1967), "Russian Diamond" (1968), "Without the Last" (1968).
By 1965, a cycle of ideas began to take shape - lyrical miniatures, thoughts about life, notes for oneself. They are published in central and peripheral magazines. In 1972, “Zatesi” was published as a separate book by the publishing house “Soviet Writer” - “Village Adventure”. “Song Singer”, “How the Goddess was Treated”, “Stars and Christmas Trees”, “Tura”, “Native Birches”, “Spring Island”, “Bread Market”, “So that everyone’s pain...”, “Cemetery”, “And with one’s ashes” . “Dome Cathedral”, “Vision”, “Berry”, “Sigh”. The writer constantly turns to the genre of ideas in his work.
In 1972, V.P. Astafiev wrote his “joyful brainchild” - “Ode to the Russian vegetable garden.”
Since 1973, stories have appeared in print that later formed the famous narrative in the stories “The Fish King”: “Boye”, “The Drop”, “At the Golden Hag”, “The Fisherman Rumbled”, “The Fish King”, “The Black Feather is Flying” , “Ear on Boganida”, “Wake”, “Turukhanskaya Lily”, “Dream of the White Mountains”, “There is no answer for me”. The publication of the chapters in the periodical - the magazine "Our Contemporary" - came with such losses in the text that the author, out of grief, went to the hospital and since then never returned to the story, did not restore or make new editions. Only many years later, having discovered in his archive the pages of the censored chapter “The Norilsk People”, yellowed from time to time, he published it in 1990 in the same magazine under the title “Missing the Heart.” “The Fish Tsar” was first published in the book “The Boy in the White Shirt,” published by the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house in 1977.
In 1978, V. P. Astafiev was awarded the USSR State Prize for his narration in the stories “The Fish Tsar”.
In the 70s, the writer again turned to the theme of his childhood - new chapters for “The Last Bow” were born: “The Feast after the Victory” (1974), “The Chipmunk on the Cross” (1974), “The Death of the Crucian Carp” (1974), “ Without Shelter" (1974), "Magpie" (1978), "Love Potion" (1978), "Burn, Burn Clear" (1978), "Soy Candy" (1978). The story of childhood - already in two books - was published in 1978 by the Sovremennik publishing house.
From 1978 to 1982, V.P. Astafiev worked on the story “The Seeing Staff,” published only in 1988. In 1991, the writer was awarded the USSR State Prize for this story.
In 1980, Astafiev moved to live in his homeland - Krasnoyarsk. A new, extremely fruitful period of his work began. In Krasnoyarsk and in Ovsyanka - the village of his childhood - he wrote the novel "The Sad Detective" (1985) and such stories as "Bear's Blood" (1984), "Life to Live" (1985), "Vimba" (1985), "The End of the World" "(1986), "Blind Fisherman" (1986), "Gudgeon Fishing in Georgia" (1986), "Vest from the Pacific Ocean" (1986), "Blue Field under Blue Skies" (1987), "Smile of the She-Wolf" (1989 ), “Born by Me” (1989), “Lyudochka” (1989), “Conversation with an Old Gun” (1997).
In 1989, V.P. Astafiev was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
On August 17, 1987, the Astafievs’ daughter Irina died suddenly. She is brought from Vologda and buried in the cemetery in Ovsyanka. Viktor Petrovich and Maria Semenovna take their little grandchildren Vitya and Polya to their place.
Life in the homeland stirred up memories and gave readers new stories about childhood - chapters were born: “Premonition of the Ice Drift”, “Zaberega”, “Stryapukhina’s Joy”, “Pestrukha”, “The Legend of the Glass Jar”, “Death”, and in 1989 “ The Last Bow" is published by the publishing house "Young Guard" in three books. In 1992, two more chapters appeared - “The Forged Little Head” and “Evening Thoughts.” “The Life-Giving Light of Childhood” required more than thirty years of creative work from the writer.
In his homeland, V. P. Astafiev created his main book about the war - the novel “Cursed and Killed”: part one “Devil’s Pit” (1990-1992) and part two “Bridgehead” (1992-1994), which took a lot of strength and health from the writer and caused heated reader controversy.
In 1994, “for his outstanding contribution to Russian literature,” the writer was awarded the Russian Independent Triumph Prize. In 1995, V. P. Astafiev was awarded the State Prize of Russia for the novel “Cursed and Killed.”
From September 1994 to January 1995, the master of words worked on a new story about the war “So I Want to Live”, and in 1995-1996 he wrote - also a “military” - story “Obertone”, in 1997 he completed the story “Merry soldier”, started in 1987, - the war does not leave the writer, his memory is disturbing. The cheerful soldier is him, the wounded young soldier Astafiev, returning from the front and trying on peaceful civilian life.
In 1997-1998, the Collected Works of V.P. Astafiev was published in Krasnoyarsk in 15 volumes, with detailed comments by the author.
In 1997, the writer was awarded the International Pushkin Prize, and in 1998 he was awarded the Prize “For the Honor and Dignity of Talent” by the International Literary Fund.
At the end of 1998, V.P. Astafiev was awarded the Apollo Grigoriev Prize by the Academy of Russian Modern Literature.
“Not a day without a line” is the motto of a tireless worker, a truly people's writer. And now there are new ideas on his table, a favorite genre - and new ideas in his heart.
Victor Petrovich Astafiev was born May 2, 1924 in the village of Ovsyanka (now Krasnoyarsk Territory) in a peasant family.
Father - Pyotr Pavlovich Astafiev. Mother, Lydia Ilyinichna Potylitsyna, drowned in the Yenisei in 1931 . He was brought up in the family of his grandparents, then in an orphanage in Igarka, and was often a street child. After graduating from the 6th grade of secondary school, he entered the FZO railway school, graduating from which in 1942, worked for some time as a train compiler in the suburbs of Krasnoyarsk. From there autumn 1942 went to the front as a volunteer, was a driver, artillery reconnaissance officer, and signalman. He took part in the battles on the Kursk Bulge, liberated Ukraine and Poland from fascist invaders, was seriously wounded and shell-shocked.
After demobilization in 1945 together with his wife - later writer M.S. Koryakina - settled in the Urals, in the city of Chusovoy. He worked as a loader, mechanic, foundry worker, carpenter in a carriage depot, as a meat carcass washer in a sausage factory, etc.
In 1951 The first story “Civilian Man” appeared in the newspaper “Chusovoy Rabochiy” (after revision it received the name “Sibiryak”). Astafiev’s passion for “writing” manifested itself very early.
From 1951 to 1955 Astafiev is a literary employee of the Chusovoy Rabochiy newspaper; published in the Perm newspapers “Zvezda”, “Young Guard”, the almanac “Prikamye”, the magazine “Ural”, “Znamya”, “Young Guard”, “Smena”. The first collection of stories “Until Next Spring” was published in Perm in 1953, followed by books for children: “Lights” ( 1955 ), "Vasyutkino Lake" ( 1956 ), "Uncle Kuzya, fox, cat" ( 1957 ), "Warm rain" ( 1958 ).
In 1958 Astafiev’s novel about the life of a collective farm village, “The Snows Are Melting,” was published, written in the tradition of 1950s fiction.
Since 1958 Astafiev - member of the USSR Joint Venture; in 1959-1961 studied at the Higher Literary Courses at the USSR Writers' Union. Astafiev turned out to be a turning point in his work 1959, when the stories “Old Oak” and “The Pass” and the story “Soldier and Mother” appeared in print. The story “Starodub” dedicated to Leonid Leonov (the action takes place in the ancient Kerzhak settlement in Siberia) was the source of the author’s reflections on the historical roots of the “Siberian” character. Criticism reproached Astafiev for the vagueness of the ethical ideal, for the triviality of the problematic, based on the opposition of “society” and “natural man.”
The story “The Pass” began a series of works by Astafiev about the formation of a young hero in difficult life conditions - “Starfall” ( 1960 ), "Theft" ( 1966 ), “War is thundering somewhere” ( 1967 ), "Last bow" ( 1968 ; initial chapters). They talked about the difficult processes of the maturation of an inexperienced soul, about the breaking of the character of a person who was left without the support of his relatives in the terrible 1930s and in the no less terrible 1940s. All these heroes, despite the fact that they have different surnames, are marked by autobiographical traits, similar destinies, a dramatic search for life “in truth and conscience.” In Astafiev's stories 1960s The gift of a storyteller was clearly revealed, able to captivate the reader with the subtlety of lyrical feeling, unexpected salty humor, and philosophical detachment. The story “Theft” occupies a special place among these works.
The hero of the story, Tolya Mazov, is one of the dispossessed peasants, whose family is dying in the northern regions. Scenes of the orphanage, “herd” life are recreated by Astafiev with compassion and cruelty, presenting a generous variety of children’s characters broken by time, impulsively falling into quarrels, hysterics, mockery of the weak, and then suddenly, unexpectedly uniting in sympathy and kindness.
With the story “Soldier and Mother,” according to the apt definition of the critic A. Makarov, who thought a lot about the essence of Astafiev’s talent, a series of stories about the Russian national character. In the best stories (“Sibiryak”, “Old Horse”, “Hands of the Wife”, “Spruce Branch”, “Zakharko”, “Anxious Dream”, “Living Life”, etc.), a person “from the people” is recreated naturally and reliably. Astafiev's creativity in the 1960s was considered by critics to be the so-called. “village prose”, in the center of which were the artists’ reflections on the foundations, origins and essence folk life.
Astafiev's story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess" ( 1971 ; subtitle “Modern Pastoral”) was unexpected for literary criticism. The already established image of Astafiev as a storyteller, working in the genre of social and everyday narration, was changing before our eyes, acquiring the features of a writer striving for a generalized perception of the world, to symbolic images. For the first time, the theme of war appears in the writer’s work. The love plot (Lieutenant Kostyaev - Lyusya) was surrounded by a fiery ring of war, highlighting the catastrophic nature of the meeting of lovers.
More at the very beginning of the 1970s Astafiev asserted the right of every person who had front-line experience to remember “their” war. The philosophical conflict of the story was realized in the confrontation between the pastoral motive of love and the monstrous, incinerating elements of war; the moral aspect concerned the relations between soldiers. The most controversial responses from critics were devoted to the genre and composition of the story. The circular composition of the story seemed rigid and overly rationalistic. The “overture” and “finale” of the work, designed in the style of folk laments and lamentations, according to some researchers, “do not quite fit with the plot-conflict basis of the story.” This bright, classic story by Astafiev was criticized for “everydayism”, and for “pacifism”, and for pastoralism, for “deheroization”, for a “romantic” “non-military” hero dying of love.
The story “Ode to the Russian vegetable garden” ( 1972 ) is a kind of poetic hymn to the hard work of the peasant, in whose life expediency, utilitarianism and beauty were harmoniously combined. The story is imbued with sadness about the lost harmony of agricultural labor, which allowed a person to feel a life-giving connection with the earth.
Created over two decades, “Last Bow” ( 1958-1978 ) is an epoch-making canvas about village life in the difficult 1930s and 40s and a confession of a generation whose childhood fell on the years of the “great turning point”, and whose youth was in the “fiery forties”. Written in the first person, stories about a difficult, hungry, but beautiful rural childhood are united by a feeling of deep gratitude to fate for the opportunity of living, direct communication with nature, with people who knew how to live “in peace,” saving children from hunger, instilling in them hard work and honesty. In the chapter "Chipmunk on the Cross", included in "The Last Bow" in 1974 , the terrible story of the disintegration of a peasant family is told, in the chapter “Soroka” - a story about the sad fate of a bright and talented man, Uncle Vasya-Soroka, in the chapter “Without Shelter” - about the hero’s bitter wanderings in Igarka, about homelessness as a social phenomenon of the 1930s.
After the publication of "The Sad Detective" ( 1986 ), "Lyudochki" ( 1989 ), the final chapters of “The Last Bow” ( 1992 ) the writer’s pessimism intensified. The world appeared before his eyes “in evil and suffering,” full of vice and crime. Events of the present and the historical past began to be considered by him from the position of a maximalist ideal, the highest moral idea and, naturally, did not correspond to their embodiment. This tough maximalism was aggravated by the pain for a ruined life, for a person who had lost himself and was indifferent to social revival.
In parallel with artistic creativity in the 1980s Astafiev is engaged in journalism. Documentary stories about nature and hunting, essays about writers, reflections on creativity, essays about the Vologda region, where the writer lived from 1969 to 1979, about Siberia, where he returned in 1980, compiled the collections “Ancient, Eternal...” ( 1980 ), "Memory Staff" ( 1980 ), “Everything has its hour” ( 1985 ).
In 1988 The book “The Seeing Staff” was published, dedicated to the memory of the critic A. Makarov. Based on his stories, Astafiev creates the drama “Bird Cherry” ( 1977 ), "I'm sorry" ( 1979 ), writes the film script “Thou shalt not kill” ( 1981 ).
Novel about the war “Cursed and Killed” (Part 1. 1992 ; Part 2. 1994 ) not only amazes with facts that were not customary to talk about before, it is distinguished by the sharpness, passion, and categoricalness of the author’s intonation, which is surprising even for Astafiev.
In 1995 Astafiev’s story “So I Want to Live” about the bizarre front-line fate and post-war life of a simple Russian soldier Kolyasha Khakhalin was published, and later the story “Obertone” ( 1996 ) and "The Jolly Soldier" ( 1998 ). Created in the genre of social and everyday and even naturalistic storytelling, these things connect and balance the author’s contradictory intonations, returning the writer to a state of wisdom and sadness. “Thank you also to the Almighty,” Astafiev said in one of his last interviews, that my memory is merciful, in ordinary life many difficult and terrible things are erased” (Literary Russia. 2000. No. 4).
Viktor Petrovich Polyanichko was born in Rostov-on-Don on March 9, 1937. At the age of 14, he went to work at the Rostselmash plant and at the same time studied at a school for working youth. From 1955 to 1956, after graduating from 10th grade, he worked as a correspondent for the regional newspaper “Zavety Ilyich” in the village. Krivandino, and then head of the industrial department of the Leninskaya Shatura newspaper in the city of Shatura.
While studying at school and working at a factory, he was constantly elected secretary of the Komsomol organization.
In June 1956, after graduating from school, Viktor Petrovich entered the correspondence department of the Faculty of Journalism of the Moscow state university and works in one of the Moscow region newspapers, and in September of the same year he was drafted into the ranks Soviet army. V.P. gave a lot. Polyanichko served in the army, which he began in Kazan, and finished in Orenburg as a Komsomol organizer of the 3rd military communications school. For excellent success in combat and political training, he was awarded a Certificate of Honor from the Political Directorate of the Volga Military District. In the army he joined the party.
In 1959 V.P. Polyanichko was early demobilized from the army and sent to a Komsomol shock construction site. Since April 7, 1959, he has been approved as an instructor in the department of Komsomol organizations of the Orenburg regional committee of the Komsomol. And on May 29 of the same year, he was appointed chief of the Komsomol headquarters for the construction of the Gai mining and processing plant. Labor Komsomol training took place here.
Then there was a five-year work as the first secretary of the Orsk city committee of the Komsomol: from November 1, 1959 to February 1964 . While working at the Orsky Komsomol State Committee, he graduated from the journalism department of Moscow State University. The Gai-Orsky period was the brightest and happiest in the life of V.P. Polyanichko, it was a time of growing up, testing oneself for strength. Here he will meet his love, become the father of a family, take his first-born son into his arms, and 12 years later a beloved daughter will appear in the family.
Then Moscow, Chelyabinsk and again in 1972 he returned to Orenburg and took up the post of secretary of the regional committee of the Communist Party. He held this post until 1978. He spent seven perestroika years under shelling and treacherous bullets in Afghanistan, Baku, and Nagorno-Karabakh. He risked his life, wanted to achieve peace and harmony.
June 1993 – North Caucasus. Last mission. Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Government, head of the Provisional Administration in the areas of emergency in Ingushetia and North Ossetia.
This happened on August 1, 1993, near the village of Tarskoye, Prigorodny District, North Ossetia, where a state of emergency is in effect. At about 5 p.m. Moscow time, the Volga, which, in addition to Polyanichko, contained the head of the Vladikavkaz garrison, Anatoly Koretsky, and the driver, was shot by machine-gun fire from an ambush in a forest protection belt. The driver and the head of the administration died immediately. Anatoly Koretsky, wounded in the legs, choked on water: the Volga, having lost control, fell into the river.
V.P. Polyanichko is included in the book of Honorary Citizens of the cities of Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, Orsk, Gaya, Magnitogorsk, Rostov-on-Don.
Astafiev Viktor Petrovich
(1.05.1924 — 29.11.2001)
On May 1, 1924, in the village of Ovsyanka, on the banks of the Yenisei, not far from Krasnoyarsk, a son, Victor, was born into the family of Pyotr Pavlovich and Lydia Ilyinichna Astafiev.
At the age of seven, the boy lost his mother - she drowned in the river, her scythe caught on the base of a boom. V.P. Astafiev will never get used to this loss. He still “can’t believe that mom is not here and never will be.” His grandmother, Ekaterina Petrovna, becomes the boy’s protector and nurse.
Victor moves with his father and stepmother to Igarka - his dispossessed grandfather Pavel was exiled here with his family. The “wild earnings” that the father was counting on did not turn out to be, the relationship with the stepmother did not work out, she pushes the burden of the child off her shoulders. The boy loses his shelter and means of livelihood, wanders, and then ends up in an orphanage. “I began my independent life immediately, without any preparation,” V.P. Astafiev would later write.
The boarding school teacher, Siberian poet Ignatiy Dmitrievich Rozhdestvensky, notices a penchant for literature in Victor and develops it. An essay about a favorite lake, published in a school magazine, will later develop into the story “Vasyutkino Lake.”
After graduating from boarding school, the teenager earns his bread at Kureika’s machine. “My childhood remained in the distant Arctic,” V.P. Astafiev would write years later. “The child, in the words of grandfather Pavel, “not born, not asked for, abandoned by mom and dad,” also disappeared somewhere, or rather, rolled away from me. A stranger to himself and everyone, a teenager or young man entered the adult working life of wartime.”
Collecting money for a ticket. Viktor leaves for Krasnoyarsk, and also enters the FZO. “I didn’t choose the group and profession in the FZO - they chose me themselves,” the writer will later say. After graduating, he works as a train compiler at the Bazaikha station near Krasnoyarsk.
In the fall of 1942, Viktor Astafiev volunteered to join the army, and in the spring of 1943 he went to the front. He is fighting in Bryansk. Voronezh and Steppe fronts, which later united into the First Ukrainian. The front-line biography of soldier Astafiev was awarded the Order of the Red Star, medals “For Courage”, “For Victory over Germany” and “For the Liberation of Poland”. He was seriously wounded several times.
In the fall of 1945, V.P. Astafiev was demobilized from the army and together with his wife, private Maria Semyonovna Koryakina, came to her homeland - the city of Chusovoy in the western Urals.
Due to health reasons, Victor can no longer return to his profession and, in order to feed his family, he works as a mechanic, laborer, loader, carpenter, meat washer, and meat processing plant watchman.
In March 1947, a daughter was born into a young family. At the beginning of September, the girl died from severe dyspepsia - it was a hungry time, her mother did not have enough milk, and there was nowhere to get food cards.
In May 1948, the Astafievs had a daughter, Irina, and in March 1950, a son, Andrei.
In 1951, having once attended a literary circle class at the Chusovskoy Rabochiy newspaper, Viktor Petrovich wrote the story “A Civilian” in one night; subsequently he will call him “Sibiryak”. From 1951 to 1955, Astafiev worked as a literary employee of the Chusovskoy Rabochiy newspaper.
In 1953, his first book of stories, “Until Next Spring,” was published in Perm, and in 1955, his second, “Ogonki.” These are stories for children. In 1955-1957 he wrote the novel “The Snow is Melting”, published two more books for children: “Vasyutkino Lake” (1956) and “Uncle Kuzya, Chickens, Fox and Cat” (1957), published essays and stories in the anthology “Prikamye” ", the magazine "Smena", the collections "There Were Hunters" and "Signs of the Times".
Since April 1957, Astafiev has been a special correspondent for the Perm Regional Radio. In 1958, his novel “The Snow is Melting” was published. V. P. Astafiev is accepted into the Writers' Union of the RSFSR.
In 1959, he was sent to the Higher Literary Courses at the M. Gorky Literary Institute. He has been studying in Moscow for two years.
The end of the 50s was marked by the heyday of the lyrical prose of V. P. Astafiev. The stories “The Pass” (1958-1959) and “Starodub” (1960), the story “Starfall”, written in one breath in just a few days (1960), bring him wide fame.
In 1962 the family moved to Perm, and in 1969 to Vologda.
The 60s were extremely fruitful for the writer: the story “Theft” (1961-1965) was written, short stories that later formed the story in the stories “The Last Bow”: “Zorka’s Song” (1960), “Geese in the Hollow” (1961), “ The Smell of Hay" (1963), "Trees Grow for Everyone" (1964), "Uncle Philip - Ship Mechanic" (1965), "Monk in New Pants" (1966), "Autumn Sadness and Joy" (1966), "dark - dark" (1967), "Last bow" (1967), "War is thundering somewhere" (1967), "Photograph in which I am not" (1968), "Grandma's holiday" (1968). In 1968, the story “The Last Bow” was published in Perm as a separate book.
During the Vologda period of his life, V.P. Astafiev created two plays: “Bird cherry” and “Forgive me.” Performances based on these plays were performed on the stage of a number of Russian theaters.
Back in 1954, Astafiev conceived the story “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess. Modern Pastoral” is “my favorite brainchild.” And he realized his plan almost 15 years later - in three days, “completely stunned and happy,” having written “a draft of one hundred and twenty pages” and then polishing the text. Written in 1967, the story had a difficult time in print and was first published in the magazine “Our Contemporary”, No. 8, 1971. The writer returned to the text of the story in 1971 and 1989, restoring what had been removed for censorship reasons.
In 1975, for the stories “The Pass”, “The Last Bow”, “Theft”, “The Shepherd and the Shepherdess” V.P. Astafiev was awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR named after M. Gorky.
In the 60s, V. P. Astafiev wrote the stories “The Old Horse” (1960), “What are you crying about, spruce tree” (1961). “Hands of a Wife” (1961), “Lebedev” (1961), “Anxious Dream” (1964), “India” (1965), “Mityai from the Dredge” (1967), “Yashka the Elk” (1967), “Blue Twilight" (1967), "Take and Remember" (1967), "On a Clear Day" (1967), "Russian Diamond" (1968), "Without the Last" (1968).
By 1965, a cycle of ideas began to take shape - lyrical miniatures, thoughts about life, notes for oneself. They are published in central and peripheral magazines. In 1972, “Zatesi” was published as a separate book by the publishing house “Soviet Writer” - “Village Adventure”. “Song Singer”, “How the Goddess was Treated”, “Stars and Christmas Trees”, “Tura”, “Native Birches”, “Spring Island”, “Bread Market”, “So that everyone’s pain...”, “Cemetery”, “And with one’s ashes” . “Dome Cathedral”, “Vision”, “Berry”, “Sigh”. The writer constantly turns to the genre of ideas in his work.
In 1972, V.P. Astafiev wrote his “joyful brainchild” - “Ode to the Russian vegetable garden.”
Since 1973, stories have appeared in print that later formed the famous narrative in the stories “The Fish King”: “Boye”, “The Drop”, “At the Golden Hag”, “The Fisherman Rumbled”, “The Fish King”, “The Black Feather is Flying” , “Ear on Boganida”, “Wake”, “Turukhanskaya Lily”, “Dream of the White Mountains”, “There is no answer for me”. The publication of the chapters in the periodical - the magazine "Our Contemporary" - proceeded with such losses in the text that the author, out of grief, went to the hospital and since then never returned to the story, did not restore or make new editions. Only many years later, having discovered in his archive the pages of the censored chapter “The Norilsk People”, yellowed from time to time, he published it in 1990 in the same magazine under the title “Missing the Heart.” “The Fish Tsar” was first published in the book “The Boy in the White Shirt,” published by the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house in 1977.
In 1978, V. P. Astafiev was awarded the USSR State Prize for his narration in the stories “The Fish Tsar”.
In the 70s, the writer again turned to the theme of his childhood - new chapters for “The Last Bow” were born: “The Feast after the Victory” (1974), “The Chipmunk on the Cross” (1974), “The Death of the Crucian Carp” (1974), “ Without Shelter" (1974), "Magpie" (1978), "Love Potion" (1978), "Burn, Burn Clear" (1978), "Soy Candy" (1978). The story of childhood - already in two books - was published in 1978 by the Sovremennik publishing house.
From 1978 to 1982, V.P. Astafiev worked on the story “The Seeing Staff,” published only in 1988. In 1991, the writer was awarded the USSR State Prize for this story.
In 1980, Astafiev moved to live in his homeland - Krasnoyarsk. A new, extremely fruitful period of his work began. In Krasnoyarsk and in Ovsyanka, the village of his childhood, he wrote the novel “The Sad Detective” (1985) and such stories as “Bear’s Blood” (1984), “Living Life” (1985), “Vimba” (1985), “The End of the World” "(1986), "Blind Fisherman" (1986), "Gudgeon Fishing in Georgia" (1986), "Vest from the Pacific Ocean" (1986), "Blue Field under Blue Skies" (1987), "Smile of the She-Wolf" (1989 ), “Born by Me” (1989), “Lyudochka” (1989), “Conversation with an Old Gun” (1997).
In 1989, V.P. Astafiev was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
On August 17, 1987, the Astafievs’ daughter Irina died suddenly. She is brought from Vologda and buried in the cemetery in Ovsyanka. Viktor Petrovich and Maria Semenovna take their little grandchildren Vitya and Polya to their place.
Life in the homeland stirred up memories and gave readers new stories about childhood - chapters were born: “Premonition of the Ice Drift”, “Zaberega”, “Stryapukhina’s Joy”, “Pestrukha”, “The Legend of the Glass Krink”, “Death”, and in 1989 “ The Last Bow" is published by the publishing house "Young Guard" in three books. In 1992, two more chapters appeared - “The Little Head” and “Evening Thoughts”. “The Life-Giving Light of Childhood” required more than thirty years of creative work from the writer.
In his homeland, V. P. Astafiev also created his main book about the war - the novel “Cursed and Killed”: part one “Devil’s Pit” (1990-1992) and part two “Bridgehead” (1992-1994), which took a lot of energy from the writer and health and caused heated debate among readers.
In 1994, “for his outstanding contribution to Russian literature,” the writer was awarded the Russian Independent Triumph Prize. In 1995, V. P. Astafiev was awarded the State Prize of Russia for the novel “Cursed and Killed.”
From September 1994 to January 1995, the master of words worked on a new story about the war, “So I Want to Live,” and in 1995-1996 he wrote, also a “war” story, “Obertone”; in 1997, he completed the story “Merry soldier”, started in 1987, the war does not leave the writer, his memory is disturbing. The cheerful soldier is him, the wounded young soldier Astafiev, returning from the front and trying on peaceful civilian life.
In 1997-1998, the Collected Works of V.P. Astafiev was published in Krasnoyarsk in 15 volumes, with detailed comments by the author.
In 1997, the writer was awarded the International Pushkin Prize, and in 1998 he was awarded the Prize “For the Honor and Dignity of Talent” by the International Literary Fund.
At the end of 1998, V.P. Astafiev was awarded the Apollo Grigoriev Prize by the Academy of Russian Modern Literature.
“Not a day without a line” is the motto of a tireless worker, a truly popular writer. And now there are new ideas on his table, a favorite genre - and new ideas in his heart.