Message about the writer M Zoshchenko. Mikhail Zoshchenko: life, creativity

Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko (1894-1958) - classic of Russian literature, satirist, translator, playwright and screenwriter. In their satirical works ridiculed cruelty, philistinism, pride, ignorance and other human vices. Based on his stories, director Leonid Gaidai made the comedy “It Can’t Be!”

Birth and family

His dad, Mikhail Ivanovich Zoshchenko, born in 1857, belonged to noble family from Poltava. He is a famous Russian mosaic artist, graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts. He worked in a mosaic workshop and St. Petersburg magazines “Niva” and “Sever” as an illustrator. His mosaic panel “Suvorov’s Departure from the Village of Konchanskoye for the Italian Campaign of 1799” still adorns the museum of the great commander today. For this work, Zoshchenko received the Imperial Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd degree. His works of art exhibited at the State Tretyakov Gallery, as well as in museums in Krasnodar and Yekaterinburg.

Mother, Elena Osipovna Zoshchenko ( maiden name Surina), born in 1875, was also noble origin. She had artistic inclinations and played in amateur theater before her marriage. Then eight children were born one after another (one of them died in infancy), and Elena Osipovna completely devoted herself to their upbringing and household chores. At the same time, she found time to write short stories and publish them in the Kopeika newspaper.

Childhood

Mikhail was the third child and first son; two girls were born before him. The family lived on the Petrogradskaya side in a house with several apartments on Bolshaya Raznochinnaya Street.

In 1903, the boy was sent to St. Petersburg gymnasium No. 8. He studied poorly, especially in the Russian language, which was extremely surprising, because even then Mikhail began to write his first stories and was going to become a writer.

Having received a “one” for an essay at the final exam with the postscript “nonsense,” Zoshchenko flew into a rage and tried to take his own life - he swallowed a crystal of sublimate (mercuric chloride). Then they pumped him out.

Youth

In 1913, Misha became a law student at the Imperial University. But a year later he was expelled for non-payment. Their family had always lived poorly, and after their father died in 1907, they had to eke out an existence in almost poverty and poverty. Mikhail went to work for the Caucasian Railway as a controller.

A year later, Zoshchenko went to the front of the outbreak of the First World War. He did this not out of any patriotic motives, he simply could not sit in one place, his soul demanded change. However, during his service he managed to distinguish himself - he participated in many battles, received a shrapnel wound in the leg and gas poisoning, and was awarded four orders.

The gas poisoning did not pass without a trace; in February 1917, Zoshchenko’s heart disease worsened, he was sent to the hospital, and from there to the reserve.

Labor path

Before taking up literary activity, Mikhail managed to master and change many professions. Returning from the front, he was appointed to the post office of St. Petersburg as commandant. Such a place was considered honorable; he was even entitled to a horse and droshky and a room at the Astoria Hotel.

Six months later, Zoshchenko was sent on a business trip to Arkhangelsk, where he was caught up in the revolution. Mikhail was offered to leave the country and go to France, but he refused. In Arkhangelsk he received a new appointment to the post of adjutant of the squad. Then he was elected secretary of the regimental court.

From Arkhangelsk, fate brought Zoshchenko to the Smolensk province, where he worked as an instructor in breeding chickens and rabbits.

At the beginning of 1919 he voluntarily joined the Red Army, but after another heart attack he was declared unfit for service and demobilized. Mikhail was appointed to the border guard as a telephone operator.

Returning to St. Petersburg, Zoshchenko joined the criminal investigation department as an agent. Then he worked as a clerk in a military port, and managed to study carpentry and shoemaking.

Literary activity

In the summer of 1919, when he was still working as an agent in the criminal investigation department, Zoshchenko began to frequent the literary studio. He did not make loud statements that he wanted to become a writer, he just sat quietly in the corner, did not participate in discussions, and was embarrassed to show his writings. He was even nicknamed the “eccentric policeman.” But when he finally decided to read his story, the audience laughed. The head of the studio, Korney Chukovsky, got acquainted with Zoshchenko’s other works and identified his obvious talent for literature.

Gradually, in the studio, Mikhail met many writers of that time. In 1921 he became a member of the Serapion Brothers literary community. The following year, 1922, the “Serapions” published their first almanac, in which Zoshchenko’s story was published. The publications immediately attracted attention to to a young writer. Maxim Gorky maintained a friendship with the “Serapion Brothers”; he began to carefully monitor Mikhail’s work and patronize him in every possible way.

Zoshchenko’s works began to be regularly published in humorous publications:

"Hippopotamus";
"Amanita";
"Laughter";
"Inspector";
"Eccentric";
"Buzoter."

In one breath people from different layers societies read his stories, novels and feuilletons:

"Aristocrat";
"Black Prince";
"Urgent business";
"Trouble";
"Retribution";
"Cup";
"Bath";
"Marriage of convenience";
"Kerensky"
"Disease history".

Mikhail's popularity grew rapidly, and phrases from humorous stories became popular among the people. His heyday as a writer occurred in the 1920s and 1930s. Zoshchenko traveled a lot around the country giving speeches, his works were republished in large editions, and a collection of works was published in six volumes. In 1939 for his creative achievements the writer was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

The author also wrote a lot for children. The first stories were published in children's magazines "Chizh" and "Hedgehog" - "Grandma's Gift", "Yolka", "Smart Animals". Then entire collections of works for young readers were published - “Lelya and Minka”, “The Most Important Thing”. In 1940, his children's book “Stories about Lenin” was published.

Personal life

Also in student years Mikhail met a pretty girl, Verochka Korbits-Kerbitskaya. She was graceful and thin, like a porcelain figurine, with a pretty little face and chestnut-colored curls, slightly mannered, very talkative, always wearing airy outfits and a hat. In her album, Zoshchenko made a note as a keepsake: “Men don’t believe in love, but it’s criminal to talk about it, otherwise there’s no access to female body" This was Mikhail’s problem - he couldn’t do it like millions ordinary people, enjoy simple things, for example, loving a woman.

Fate separated them after they met, and in 1918 brought them together again for forty long years, full of separations and reconciliations. They got married by accident. In 1920, Zoshchenko’s mother died, and then Vera offered to move in with her. He went with this woman to the registry office and transported his simple belongings to her house - a small desk, a bookcase, a carpet and two armchairs.

When her husband began to receive his first writer's fees, Vera furnished the apartment with furniture, bought paintings in gilded frames, porcelain shepherdesses and a large spreading date palm. This change of situation not only did not make Zoshchenko happy, but rather caused melancholy. He left his wife with their newly born son Valerka and moved to the House of Arts. At the same time, Mikhail periodically visited the family, but not to visit, but because he was firmly convinced that his official wife should feed him lunch, wash his clothes and help him with his correspondence.

Zoshchenko called his wife an “old woman”, suppressed his blues in endless love affairs, but Vera endured everything, understood that this was not bad character, A incurable disease. Mikhail's novels were fleeting and cynical, he liked married women. He visited his mistresses at home and met their husbands. But all this did not bring the writer relief from melancholy. Looking over all his love affairs in his memory, he understood: the more women there were, the more meaningless life became. He drove himself into a corner.

Depression

His friend Korney Chukovsky said that Misha should be the most happy man on earth, because he has everything - beauty and youth, fame, talent and money. But instead, the writer was consumed by such depression that he could not put pen to paper and avoided any communication with people. Zoshchenko did not leave the house for two weeks, did not shave, sat in his room and was silent.

It got to the point that in 1926 he turned to a psychiatrist. Mikhail complained that he couldn’t eat because of melancholy, and because of irritability he couldn’t sleep; everything disturbed him - the sound of a tram on the street, the dripping of water from the tap. The doctor examined the patient and advised him to read short humorous stories every time before going to bed or eating, for example, by an author such as Zoshchenko. The patient sadly replied that he was the very author of Zoshchenko.

Having received no qualified help, he took up the books of the Russian academician Pavlov and the German psychoanalyst Freud, trying to cure himself. Mikhail tried to unravel the reasons for his melancholy and depression.

He analyzed his whole life, recalled every incident that could provoke the current blues:

I remembered moments when his mother weaned him, a two-year-old boy, from the breast, smearing it with bitter quinine.
At the age of three, a local doctor performed surgery on him without anesthesia. Misha cut himself then, but the harmless wound began to fester, which could lead to blood poisoning. He clearly remembered how a shiny scalpel cut through his flesh.
As a six-year-old child, he witnessed a neighbor's youth drown in a roadside ditch.
He remembered his mother’s unsuccessful efforts to get a pension, when they were left poor after the death of their father, and from then on he was always haunted by the fear of poverty.
A picture arose before his eyes when, during the war, after a terrible gas poisoning, he woke up and saw dead colleagues around him and even birds falling dead from the trees.

War

Mikhail was not taken to the front because of his age and heart problems. He remained in Leningrad and joined the fire defense. In the fall of 1941, he was evacuated to Alma-Ata, where he collaborated with the Mosfilm studio. Zoshchenko wrote scripts for the films “Fallen Leaves” and “Soldier’s Happiness.” IN free time continued to compose the main work of his life.

In 1943, the magazine "October" published the first chapters of the novel. But this publication turned out to be a disaster for the writer. The Bolshevik magazine published a devastating article about how Zoshchenko was engaged in “psychological picking” when the entire people were fighting against the German invaders. The article also stated that to the Soviet people The illnesses in which the author of the novel drowned are not typical.

Clouds gathered over Zoshchenko, publication of the continuation of the novel was banned, persecution and persecution began. His work was criticized by Stalin and Zhdanov, calling him “disgusting,” and the author himself a “literary scum” and a “coward.”

Last years

In 1946, Zoshchenko was expelled from the Writers' Union. In order not to die of hunger, he began to work as a translator. Mikhail bravely endured all the hardships, but in 1954 he broke down. Just after Stalin died and Konstantin Simonov arranged for Zoshchenko to be returned to the Writers' Union. After many years of seclusion, Mikhail began to experience depression and his health deteriorated.

He lived in Sestroretsk at the dacha. In the spring of 1958, he was severely poisoned by nicotine, after which, due to a spasm of blood vessels in the brain, he could not recognize his relatives, and problems with speech began. The day before his death, his ability to speak returned. For the first time in many years, Mikhail hugged his wife tightly and said: “How strange, Verochka...How absurdly I lived.” That same night, July 22, 1958, the writer’s heart stopped.

Bury Zoshchenko on Volkovsky cemetery The authorities banned Leningrad. His grave is located in Sestroretsk, his wife, son and grandson rest nearby.

Zoshchenko Mikhail Mikhailovich (1894-1958), writer.

In 1913 he entered the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University. Zoshchenko’s first literary experiments date back to this time (note about modern writers, outlines of short stories).

In 1915, during the First World War, he volunteered to go to the front, commanded a battalion, and became Knight of St. George.

In 1917 he returned to St. Petersburg, in 1918, despite heart disease, he volunteered for the Red Army. After Civil War in 1919, Zoshchenko studied in a creative studio at the publishing house “World Literature” in Petrograd, led by K. I. Chukovsky.

In 1920-1921 his stories appeared.

In 1921 Zoshchenko became a member literary circle"Serapion's brothers." The writer’s first book was published in 1922 under the title “Stories of Nazar Ilyich, Mr. Sinebryukhov.” Then “Raznotyk” (1923), “Aristocrat” (1924), “ Happy life"(1924). Their publication immediately made the author famous.

By the mid-20s. XX century Zoshchenko became one of the most popular writers in Russia.

In 1929, he published the book “Letters to a Writer,” in which he depicted many negative aspects of Soviet life on behalf of various citizens. He himself remarked on this matter: “I write only in the language in which the street now speaks and thinks.” After the book was published, director V. E. Meyerhold was forbidden to stage Zoshchenko’s play “Dear Comrade” (1930).

Zoshchenko’s works that went beyond “positive satire on individual shortcomings” were no longer published. However, the writer himself increasingly ridiculed the life of Soviet society.

The resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad” dated August 14, 1946 led to a ban on the publication of Zoshchenko’s works and to the persecution of the writer.

The consequence of this ideological campaign was the aggravation of Mikhail Mikhailovich mental illness. His reinstatement in the Writers' Union after the death of I.V. Stalin (1953) and the publication of his first book after a long break (1956) only temporarily alleviated his condition.

The family found itself on the brink of poverty.

In 1913, after graduating from the St. Petersburg gymnasium, Mikhail Zoshchenko entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, but a year later he was expelled due to non-payment of tuition.

At first he worked as a controller at the Caucasian railway. When did the first one begin? World War, Zoshchenko volunteered for military service. He was enlisted as a private cadet in Pavlovskoe military school as a volunteer of the 1st category; Having completed accelerated courses, he went to the front. He took part in many battles, was wounded and gassed. He was awarded four orders for military merits and transferred to the reserve due to health reasons.

In August, on the occasion of the writer’s birthday, the Zoshchenko Readings are held annually in the Sestroretsk Zoshchenko Library.

Mikhail Zoshchenko was married to Vera Kerbits-Kerbitskaya, the daughter of a retired colonel. He left behind a son, Valery.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Born on July 29 (August 10), 1895 in St. Petersburg in the family of an artist.
Childhood impressions - including the difficult relationship between parents - were reflected both in Zoshchenko's stories for children (Galoshes and Ice Cream, Christmas Tree, Grandma's Gift, Don't Lie, etc.) and in his story Before Sunrise (1943). The first literary experiences date back to childhood. In one of his notebooks, he noted that in 1902-1906 he had already tried to write poetry, and in 1907 he wrote the story Coat.

In 1913 Zoshchenko entered the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University. His first surviving stories date back to this time - Vanity (1914) and Two-kopeck (1914). His studies were interrupted by the First World War. In 1915, he volunteered to go to the front, commanded a battalion, and became a Knight of St. George. Literary work did not stop during these years. Zoshchenko tried himself in short stories, epistolary and satirical genres(composed letters to fictitious recipients and epigrams to fellow soldiers). In 1917 he was demobilized due to heart disease that arose after gas poisoning.

Upon returning to Petrograd, Marusya, Meshchanochka, Neighbor and other unpublished stories were written, in which the influence of G. Maupassant was felt. In 1918, despite his illness, Zoshchenko volunteered for the Red Army and fought on the fronts of the Civil War until 1919. Returning to Petrograd, he earned a living, as before the war, different professions: shoemaker, joiner, carpenter, actor, rabbit breeding instructor, policeman, criminal investigation officer, etc. In the humorous Orders on railway police and criminal supervision written at that time, Art. Ligovo and other unpublished works can already feel the style of the future satirist.

In 1919, Zoshchenko studied in a creative studio organized by the publishing house "World Literature". The classes were supervised by K.I. Chukovsky. Recalling his stories and parodies written during his studio studies, Chukovsky wrote: “It was strange to see that such a sad person was endowed with this wondrous ability to powerfully make his neighbors laugh.” In addition to prose, during his studies Zoshchenko wrote articles about the works of A. Blok, V. Mayakovsky, N. Teffi and others. At the Studio he met writers V. Kaverin, Vs. Ivanov, L. Lunts, K. Fedin, E. Polonskaya and others, who in 1921 merged into literary group"Serapion Brothers", which advocated freedom of creativity from political tutelage. Creative communication was facilitated by the life of Zoshchenko and other “serapions” in the famous Petrograd House of Arts, described by O. Forsh in the novel Crazy Ship.

In 1920-1921, Zoshchenko wrote the first stories that were subsequently published: Love, War, Old Woman Wrangel, Female Fish. The cycle Stories of Nazar Ilyich, Mr. Sinebryukhov (1921-1922) was published as a separate book by the Erato publishing house. This event marked Zoshchenko's transition to professional literary activity. The very first publication made him famous. Phrases from his stories acquired character catchphrases: "Why are you disturbing the chaos?"; “The second lieutenant is wow, but he’s a bastard,” etc. From 1922 to 1946, his books went through about 100 editions, including collected works in six volumes (1928-1932).

By the mid-1920s, Zoshchenko became one of the most popular writers. His stories Bathhouse, Aristocrat, Case History, etc., which he himself often read before numerous audiences, were known and loved in all levels of society. In a letter to Zoshchenko A.M. Gorky noted: “I don’t know of such a relationship between irony and lyricism in anyone’s literature.” Chukovsky believed that at the center of Zoshchenko’s work was the fight against callousness in human relationships.

In story collections of the 1920s Humorous stories(1923), Dear Citizens (1926), etc. Zoshchenko created a new type of hero for Russian literature - Soviet man who has not received an education, has no skills in spiritual work, does not have cultural baggage, but strives to become a full participant in life, to become equal to the “rest of humanity.” The reflection of such a hero produced a strikingly funny impression. The fact that the story was told on behalf of a highly individualized narrator gave literary scholars grounds to determine creative manner Zoshchenko as “fantastic”. Academician V.V. Vinogradov, in his study Zoshchenko’s Language, examined in detail the writer’s narrative techniques and noted the artistic transformation of various speech layers in his vocabulary. Chukovsky noted that Zoshchenko introduced into literature “a new, not yet fully formed, but victoriously spreading extra-literary speech throughout the country and began to freely use it as his own speech.” Zoshchenko’s work was highly appreciated by many of his outstanding contemporaries - A. Tolstoy, Y. Olesha, S. Marshak, Y. Tynyanov and others.

In 1929, having received Soviet history title "the year of the great turning point", Zoshchenko published the book Letters to a Writer - a peculiar sociological research. It consisted of several dozen letters from the huge reader mail that the writer received, and his commentary on them. In the preface to the book, Zoshchenko wrote that he wanted to “show genuine and undisguised life, genuine living people with their desires, taste, thoughts.” The book caused bewilderment among many readers, who expected only more funny stories from Zoshchenko.

Soviet reality could not but affect emotional state a sensitive writer prone to depression from childhood. A trip along the White Sea Canal, organized in the 1930s for propaganda purposes for large group Soviet writers, made a depressing impression on him. But after this trip he wrote about how criminals are re-educated in the camps (The Story of One Life, 1934). An attempt to get rid of the depressed state and correct one’s own painful psyche became a kind of psychological research- story Youth Returned (1933). The story evoked an interested reaction in the scientific community that was unexpected for the writer: the book was discussed at numerous academic meetings and reviewed in scientific publications; Academician I. Pavlov began to invite Zoshchenko to his famous “Wednesdays”.

As a continuation of Youth Restored, a collection of short stories, The Blue Book (1935), was conceived. Zoshchenko believed Blue Book according to the internal content of the novel, he defined it as " a short history human relations" and wrote that it "is not driven by a novella, but philosophical idea, which makes it." Stories about modernity were interspersed in this work with stories set in the past - in different periods of history. Both the present and the past were given in the perception of the typical hero Zoshchenko, not burdened with cultural baggage and understanding history as a set of everyday episodes.

After the publication of the Blue Book, which caused devastating reviews, Zoshchenko was actually prohibited from publishing works that went beyond “positive satire on individual shortcomings.” Despite his high writing activity (commissioned feuilletons for the press, plays, film scripts, etc.), Zoshchenko’s true talent was manifested only in the stories for children that he wrote for the magazines “Chizh” and “Ezh”.

In the 1930s, the writer worked on a book that he considered the most important in his life. Work continued during Patriotic War in Alma-Ata, in evacuation, since Zoshchenko could not go to the front due to serious illness hearts. In 1943, the initial chapters of this scientific and artistic study of the subconscious were published in the magazine "October" under the title Before Sunrise. Zoshchenko examined incidents from his life that gave impetus to severe mental illness, from which doctors could not save him. Modern scientific world notes that in this book the writer anticipated many of the discoveries of science about the unconscious by decades.

The magazine publication caused such a scandal, such a barrage of critical abuse was rained down on the writer that the publication of Before Sunrise was suspended. Zoshchenko addressed a letter to Stalin, asking him to familiarize himself with the book “or give orders to check it more thoroughly than has been done by critics.” There was no answer. The press called the book “nonsense, needed only by the enemies of our homeland” (Bolshevik magazine). In 1946, after the release of the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad,” the party leader of Leningrad A. Zhdanov recalled in his report the book Before Sunrise, calling it a “disgusting thing,” see APPENDIX.

The 1946 resolution, which criticized Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova, led to their public persecution and a ban on the publication of their works. The reason was the publication children's story Zoshchenko Adventures of a Monkey (1945), in which there was a hint that in Soviet country monkeys live better than humans. At a writers' meeting, Zoshchenko stated that the honor of an officer and a writer does not allow him to come to terms with the fact that in the Central Committee resolution he is called a "coward" and a "scum of literature." In 1954, at a meeting with English students, Zoshchenko again tried to express his attitude towards the 1946 resolution, after which the persecution began in the second round.

The saddest consequence of this campaign was the exacerbation of mental illness, which did not allow the writer to work fully. His reinstatement in the Writers' Union in 1953 and the publication of his first book after a long break (1956) brought only temporary relief to his condition.

Biography and episodes of life Mikhail Zoshchenko. When born and died Mikhail Zoshchenko, memorable places and dates important events his life. Writer quotes, Photo and video.

Years of life of Mikhail Zoshchenko:

born July 28, 1894, died July 22, 1958

Epitaph

“Brother writers! in our destiny
Something fatal lies:
If we all, not believing ourselves,
We chose something else -
It wouldn’t be, for sure, I agree,
Pathetic scribblers and pedants -
If only it wouldn't be the same, friends,
Scotts, Shakespeares and Dantes!
To exalt one, struggle
Carrying away thousands of the weak -
Nothing comes for free: fate
He asks for redemptive sacrifices."
From the poem “In the Hospital” by Nikolai Nekrasov

"I'm so sad today,
So tired of painful thoughts,
So deeply, deeply calm
My tortured mind,

What an illness that oppresses my heart,
Somehow it makes me bitterly happy -
Meeting death, threatening, coming,
I would go myself... But the sleep will refresh -
<...>
And the illness that crushes strength,
Tomorrow will be just as tormenting
And about the proximity of the dark grave
It is also clear to the soul to speak..."
From a poem by Nikolai Nekrasov

Biography

A difficult and unfair fate befell wonderful writer Mikhail Zoshchenko. It’s hard to imagine how much the author of Lyolya and Minka, a humorist and satirist, endured during the war years at the front. During the war he received five orders, was gassed and permanently crippled. But Zoshchenko was broken not by heart disease, but by sudden total disgrace and oblivion after several years of all-Russian popularity.

Zoshchenko fought bravely during the First World War and was eager to volunteer for the front during the Great Patriotic War - but he was not accepted due to serious heart disease, the consequences of poisoning. Literary talent Zoshchenko revealed himself during the interwar period, and the writer immediately became popular: after his first publications comic stories printed and reprinted in huge quantities.

But Zoshchenko’s life’s work was not stories. During the Great Patriotic War, he was evacuated, where he was sent as unsuitable for military service, the writer took with him not things, but notebooks with the work of his largest and most important book, “Before Sunrise.” He worked on it for 10 years, and finally, in 1943, the book was published: the first chapters began to be published in the magazine “October”.

And this was the beginning of the end for Zoshchenko. He was severely criticized; the magazines in which he worked were closed, Zoshchenko was expelled from the Writers' Union, he was banned from working, former colleagues stopped all communication with their former idol. Zoshchenko’s book was called anti-Soviet, vulgar and disgusting, and the behavior of himself, who was evacuated during the war for health reasons, was called unworthy.

Only 8 years later did the writer have a chance to rehabilitate himself. At a meeting between him and Anna Akhmatova with students from Great Britain, both writers were asked how they felt about their disgrace. Zoshchenko did not admit any guilt, insisting that his conscience was clear and he did not agree with the party’s resolution. After this, the end was finally put to Zoshchenko.

The writer’s health, already fragile, became even worse. He suffered from long periods of depression; Zoshchenko could no longer work. He died of acute heart failure at his dacha in Sestroretsk. Zoshchenko’s funeral on the Literary Bridges was prohibited, and his grave is located there, in Sestroretsk.

Life line

July 28, 1894 Date of birth of Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko.
1913 Graduation from high school.
1914 Enrollment in the Pavlovsk Military School.
1915 Completion of accelerated wartime courses, promotion to ensign. Wound. Receiving the Order of St. Stanislaus, III degree.
1916 Receiving the Order of St. Anne IV degree, Order of St. Stanislaus II degree and Order of St. Anne II degree. Appointment as company commander.
1917 Zoshchenko was nominated for the Order of St. Vladimir, IV degree. Appointment as head of posts and telegraphs and commandant of the Petrograd post office.
1919 Joining the Red Army.
1920-1922 Visit to the literary studio of K. Chukovsky.
1922 Zoshchenko's first publications.
1939 Awarding the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
1941 Evacuation to Alma-Ata, work in the script department of Mosfilm.
1943 Moving to Moscow, working in the editorial office of the Krokodil magazine. Publication of the first chapters of the book “Before Sunrise”.
1946 Resolution of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the closure of the magazine “Leningrad” with criticism of Zoshchenko. Expulsion from the Writers' Union. Translation work.
July 22, 1958 Date of death of Mikhail Zoshchenko.
1968 First publication of the story “Before Sunrise” in the USA.
1987 The first publication of the story “Before Sunrise” in Russia.

Memorable places

1. House No. 4 on the street. B. Raznochinnaya in St. Petersburg, where in the quarter. No. 1 writer born.
2. Imperial St. Petersburg University (now St. Petersburg State University), where Zoshchenko studied for 1 year.
3. Arkhangelsk, where Zoshchenko served as adjutant of the Arkhangelsk squad in 1917.
4. Alma-Ata, where Zoshchenko was evacuated during the Great Patriotic War.
5. Apartment No. 119 in building 4/2 on Malaya Konyushennaya Street. in St. Petersburg, where Zoshchenko lived from 1954 to 1958; now - the Literary and Memorial Museum of the Writer.
6. Zoshchenko’s dacha in Sestroretsk, where the writer died; now it is a monument of cultural and historical heritage. Address: Polevaya st., 14-a.
7. City cemetery in Sestroretsk, where M. Zoshchenko is buried in plot No. 10.

Episodes of life

Zoshchenko came from a poor family and was expelled from the university for non-payment. Throughout his life, he tried many professions to earn money: he worked as a court secretary, a criminal investigation agent, an instructor in breeding chickens and rabbits, and a shoemaker.

Since 1922, Zoshchenko's books have been published about 100 times, including a six-volume collected works.

In 1930-1940 M. Zoshchenko wrote approximately 20 plays, including one in collaboration with E. Schwartz (“Under the Linden Trees of Berlin”).

The story "Before Sunrise", which infuriated Stalin, was very biographical. In it, Zoshchenko, using his own example, tried to understand the work of the human psyche.

Alexander Filippenko reads M. Zoshchenko’s story “A Dog’s Scent”

Testaments

“Generally speaking, it is not known how much a person needs. Probably more than what he needs, and no less than what he wants.”

“War will become absurd, I think, when technology reaches an absolute hit.”

“You have some strange attitude towards life - as a reality that is eternal. Make money! Take care of the future! How funny and stupid is it to position yourself in life as in your home, where you will live forever? Where? At the cemetery. All of us, gentlemen, are guests in this life - we come and go.”

Condolences

“He could never write according to a “stencil”, as required, or express “well-known truths” - he was always looking for new, his own, untrodden paths.”
Korney Chukovsky, writer

“Zoshchenko’s language enveloped, bewitched - it turned out to be very suitable in the most different cases life... Laughter, sadness, bitterness - everything is woven together in the complex novelty of it best works, in their verbal connection."
Mikhail Slonimsky, writer

“Over the years of many years of friendship, I had never heard him laugh: his small mouth with white, even teeth rarely formed a soft smile. While reading his stories, he was sometimes forced to stop - he was disturbed by the deafening, almost pathological laughter of the audience, and then the look of his beautiful black eyes became especially thoughtful and sad. Softness and hardness - these two opposite concepts did not at all contradict each other in him. But there was also something else, shunned, deeply hidden - a tendency towards loneliness, towards the solitude of reflection?
Veniamin Kaverin, writer