Biography of Arkady Petrovich Gaidar. Military secret of Arkady Gaidar

Gaidar (real name Golikov) Arkady Petrovich (1904 - 1941), prose writer.
Born on January 9 (22 NS) in the city of Lgov, Kursk province, in the family of a teacher. My childhood years were spent in Arzamas. He studied at a real school, but when the First World War began and his father was drafted into the army, he ran away from home a month later to go to his father at the front. Ninety kilometers from Arzamas he was detained and returned.
Later, as a teenager of fourteen, he met " good people- Bolsheviks" and in 1918 he left "to fight for the bright kingdom of socialism." He was a physically strong and tall guy, and after some hesitation he was accepted into the Red commanders' courses. At fourteen and a half years old, he commanded a company of cadets on the Petliura front, and at seventeen for years he was the commander of a separate regiment to combat banditry (“this is in Antonovism”).
In December 1924, Gaidar left the army due to illness (after being wounded and shell-shocked). I started writing. His teachers in the craft of writing were K. Fedin, M. Slonimsky and S. Semenov, who analyzed literally every line with him, criticized and explained the technique of literary mastery.
He considered his best works to be the stories "P.B.C." (1925), "Distant Countries", "The Fourth Dugout" and "School" (1930), "Timur and His Team" (1940). He traveled a lot around the country, met different people, and greedily absorbed life. He couldn’t write, locked himself in his office at a comfortable table. He composed on the go, thought about his books on the road, recited entire pages by heart, and then wrote them down in simple notebooks. “The birthplace of his books is different cities, villages, even trains.” When the Second World War began, the writer rejoined the army, going to the front as a war correspondent. His unit was surrounded, and they wanted to take the writer out by plane, but he refused to leave his comrades and remained in the partisan detachment as an ordinary machine gunner. On October 26, 1941, in Ukraine, near the village of Lyaplyavoya, Gaidar died in a battle with the Nazis.
short biography from the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.
Gaidar (real name - Golikov) Arkady Petrovich (01/09/1904. Lgovsky workers' village - 10/26/1941, near Kanev, Ukraine), writer. At the age of 15 he joined the Bolsheviks and in 1919 joined the Red Army. He quickly became the assistant commander of the Red partisans operating in the Arzamas region. Then he commanded a detachment (regiment). Participated in the suppression of the Antonov uprising in the Tambov region. According to his memoirs, he was distinguished by pathological cruelty, which raised doubts about his mental health. Since the Civil War, Gaidar became an alcoholic, suffered from heavy drinking, and was tormented by nightmares. He was depressed all his life and even tried to commit suicide. His childhood psyche could not withstand the atrocities of the Civil War.
Author of works about the romance of the revolution "RVS" (1926), "School" (1930), "Military Secret" (1935). His story "Timur and His Team" (1940) has become a classic. He was considered one of the founders of Soviet children's literature. He became one of the key figures in Soviet propaganda; legends were created around him that had nothing to do with reality. His works until the 1990s. were invariably key in the school curriculum and were compulsory for all Soviet schoolchildren to study. Circulations amounted to tens of millions of copies. After the start of perestroika, his work began to be revised, and now he is practically forgotten and his grandson Yegor Timurovich Gaidar has become more famous.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War went to the front. Killed in battle. Buried in Kanev.

Name: Arkadiy Gaydar

Place of Birth: Lgov, Kursk province

A place of death: Leplyavo, Kanevsky district, Ukraine

Activity: Soviet children's writer

Family status: was married

Gaidar Arkady Petrovich (Golikov) - biography

The story “Timur and His Team” once became the reason for the emergence of a multi-million dollar loss of “Timurites”. Nevertheless, after its publication, Gaidar almost went to the camps.

In Soviet textbooks they wrote the same thing about Gaidar: a red commander, a children's writer, a hero of the Great Patriotic War. However, his biography was much more tortuous than the official certificate.

Arkady Golikov (Gaidar) - childhood

Arkady Petrovich Gaidar (real name Golikov) was born on January 22, 1904 into a teacher’s family in the city of Lgov, near Kursk.
The writer's father, Golikov Pyotr Isidorovich, was a peasant. Mother, Golikova Natalya Arkadyevna, nee Salkova, was a great-great-grand-relative famous poet.

It was he who instilled in Arkasha Golikov the habit of developing memory: “Learn poetry or passages of prose text every day. Or foreign language. The time spent will be returned to you with interest.” Golikov’s memory became phenomenal; he easily remembered maps, the names of hundreds of soldiers, and could quote his stories for hours. “I find that you have literary abilities,” Sokolov once told him after reading his essay on friendship. And he knew how to value Arkash’s friendship.

At the age of 8, together with his friends Kolka and Koska Arkasha Golikov went to the Tesha River. The ice had just risen, but the boys were eager to skate. Suddenly Kolka’s scream was heard: the boy fell through the ice. Golikov rushed to his friend, but also ended up in the water. He gathered all his strength, grabbed his friend by the clothes and pulled him out into the shallow water...

Arkady greeted the February and then the October Revolution with enthusiasm. He went to all kinds of meetings, but the Bolshevik committee aroused his greatest interest.

Golikov was noticed, they began to attract him to work, and 14-year-old Arkasha applied to join the party. The request was granted.

Arkady Golikov-Gaidar: combat activities

One day Arkady saw a teenager dancing in a circle of soldiers near a train. He came up and started talking. Pashka-Gypsy, that was the boy’s name, explained that he was accepted into the Red Army as the son of the regiment. Arkady Golikov immediately became interested: “Will they take me?!” Having examined the volunteer, the commander was about to give the go-ahead, but remembered that he did not know his age. "Fourteen?! - he was surprised. - I thought you were sixteen. Grow up a little more."

Soon the mother found out about this incident. Just at that time, a new battalion was being formed in Arzamas, the commander of which was her acquaintance, Efim Efimov. Natalya begged him to take Arkasha Golikov as his adjutant.

A month later, Efimov was appointed commander of the troops for the protection of railways. He also took the clever adjutant Golikov with him to Moscow. There, a 15-year-old boy was appointed head of communications at the railway security headquarters, and Efimov took him to meetings with commanders, where he rattled off numbers and names.

With such inclinations, Golikov was guaranteed a staff career, but the young man was eager to go to the front. And Efimov decided to let Arkady go. True, not to the front, but to the command courses of the Red Army, where they took people with experience and from 18 years of age. However, Efimov solved this problem too.

The courses moved to Kyiv, 180 people were required to complete a 2-year infantry school program in six months. The workload was colossal, and besides, the cadets were thrown into defense breakthroughs. As a result, everyone was given the rank of commander ahead of schedule. Frunze himself came to the graduation and, instead of congratulations, honestly warned: “Many of you will not return from the coming battles.” After which the orchestra performed a funeral march.

For his excellent combat and command skills, the battalion commander sent 16-year-old Golikov to Moscow to the Vystrel commander school. The Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army had no ranks, but after graduating from "Shot", 17-year-old Golikov, in fact, became a colonel. Immediately after graduation, he was given command of a reserve regiment of 4 thousand bayonets in the Voronezh region.

In April 1921, Arkady was sent near Tambov to pacify the Antonov uprising. The latter fought for the peasants, whom the Bolsheviks oppressed with extortion and surplus appropriation. Antonov could bet up to 50 thousand under the bayonet and still lost.

True, Golikov almost died then. During the battle, the explosion concussed him and knocked him out of the saddle, and shrapnel cut his leg. The worst thing is that he fell on his back and injured his spine. Subsequently, this injury will become the cause of traumatic neurosis.

As a reward for his service, Army Commander Tukhachevsky sent Arkady to study at the General Staff Academy. But Golikov never became a red general.

In 1920, an anti-Soviet rebellion broke out in Khakassia. Counter-insurgency specialist Arkady Golikov was sent there. Tormented by terrible headaches, he drank a lot and sometimes committed lawlessness against the local population. Although compared to his “colleagues” he acted moderately. Nevertheless, in June 1922, the OGPU opened a case against him, threatening him with execution.

And yet the court acquitted Arkady. He was removed from Khakassia, and was not accepted into the Academy of the General Staff due to health reasons. For the same reason, in 1924 Golikov was commissioned.

For a man who knew nothing but war, this was a tragedy. At first he drowned it out with alcohol, and then he began to write. His story “The Corner House,” published under the pseudonym Gaidar, turned out quite well.

From Golikov - to Gaidar

The writer did not give clear explanations about his pseudonym. There is a version that Gaidar is an abbreviation of the phrase “Golikov Arkady from Arzamas”, because Arkady studied French as a child (“G” is the first letter of the surname; “AY” is the first and last letter of the name; “D” - in French - “ from"; "AR" - the first letters of the name of the hometown).

Arkady Petrovich Gaidar - writing activity

Despite the fact that in the USSR the stories and stories of Arkady Gaidar became famous, he himself for a long time I was practically homeless - I traveled around the country without my own corner. And addiction to drinking and difficult character destroyed his second marriage. Only in 1938 did the Writers' Union procure a room for him in a communal apartment in Moscow.

The pitiful fees barely made it possible to make ends meet. However, there were worse things. Thus, Gaidar’s story “The Blue Cup” aroused the ire of People’s Commissar of Education Nadezhda Krupskaya. After the publication of “The Fate of the Drummer” in Pionerskaya Pravda, a circular was issued banning the story, and all Gaidar’s books were removed from libraries and destroyed.

A miracle saved me. From somewhere, an old list of writers nominated for awards surfaced. Stalin signed it, and Gaidar received the Order of the Badge of Honor. The NKVD did not dare to arrest the order bearer.

When the Great Patriotic War began, Arkady Petrovich immediately asked to go to the front. However, due to health reasons, he was not accepted, and then he went to war as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda. Near Kyiv, he was surrounded.

The writer was offered a seat on a plane to Moscow, but he refused. Gaidar dreamed of gathering a partisan detachment from the encirclement and continuing the fight. It didn’t work out... On October 26, 1941, Arkady Gaidar was killed by the Nazis near the village of Leplyaevo, Cherkasy region. He was only 37 years old.

The biography of Arkady Gaidar's (Golikov) personal life was very eventful. He was married as many as three times.
For the first time, Gaidar married Maria Plaksina, whom he met while staying in the hospital; at that time Golikov was 17 years old.
Gaidar's second wife was Permyachka Liya Solomyanskaya. In 1926. Having lived together for five years, Leah left Gaidar for another man.
Gaidar-Golikov's third wife was Dora Chernysheva, whom Gaidar met in 1938, and a month later they got married.

During his lifetime, Arkady Petrovich Gaidar became a legend Soviet era: at the age of fourteen he joined the Communist Party and went to the front of the Civil War; at the age of seventeen he commanded a regiment, dealing with bandits; then he became a writer, whose books were read by more than one generation of Soviet pioneers.

Countless streets, squares, and alleys in central and not-so-central cities are named after Gaidar. Houses of Pioneers, children's libraries, detachments and squads of Soviet schools bore his name. Biography of the writer, how fascinating piece of art, read out at “Leninist” lessons and pioneer gatherings. A portrait of young Gaidar in the famous Kubanka, with a saber on his belt, hung in almost every “cool corner”. It seemed that there was no brighter and more heroic personality than the author of “Timur” and “The Fate of a Drummer.” Gaidar escaped the skating rink of Stalinist repressions, persecution and oblivion. He died in battle with fascist invaders being at its peak literary fame. It was impossible to suspect or accuse such a hero of anything.

However, during the period of so-called “perestroika,” a stream of negative assessments of the recent past, accusations and sensational revelations literally rained down on the heads of our fellow citizens. Arkady Gaidar did not escape this fate. By then conscious Soviet people the image of the children's writer and hero was so idealized that some facts from his real life, deliberately and without evidence inflated by false historians and zealous scribblers, produced not just an unfavorable, but rather a disgusting impression. It turned out that the seventeen-year-old regiment commander proved himself to be a merciless punisher during the suppression of anti-Soviet uprisings in the Tambov region and Khakassia in 1921-1922. At the same time, he did not fight with heavily armed whites or bandits, but with the civilian population, which was trying to protect itself from the tyranny and violence of the local authorities. The famous children's writer taught the younger generation goodness, justice, loyalty to the Motherland, but he himself abused alcohol, did not have his own home, did not have a normal family, and in general was a mentally ill, deeply unhappy, half-insane person.

As it turned out, most of these accusations turned out to be deliberate lies.

Gaidar is a man of his heroic-romantic, but also tragic time. Today it’s hard to believe that it was creativity that saved famous writer from complete internal discord, illness, fear of the reality in which he, a dreamer and romantic, had to survive. In his imagination, Gaidar created a happy country of the pioneer Timur, Alka, Chuk and Gek, the little drummer Seryozha. Gaidar himself firmly believed in this country, believed in the reality of the great future of his heroes. His faith inspired thousands, even millions of Soviet boys and girls to live according to the fictitious, but most beautiful and fair laws of the “country of Gaidar.” As V. Pelevin wrote in his famous book“The Life of Insects,” even the image of a child killer created by a children’s writer, free from the Christian commandment “thou shalt not kill” and the throwings of the student Raskolnikov, has a right to exist. This image does not look so disgusting if only because Gaidar was truly sincere when he drew it from himself, a non-fictional hero and victim of a cruel revolutionary era. He really belonged among the bookstores, ideal heroes, from whom they took an example and whom entire generations sought to imitate. This is the whole truth about Gaidar. It makes no sense to look for some other truth...

Parents and childhood

Arkady Petrovich Golikov was born in the small town of Lgov, Kursk region. His father, a school teacher, Pyotr Isidorovich Golikov, was from a peasant background. Mother - Natalya Arkadyevna, nee Salkova, a noblewoman of a not very noble family (she was the sixth great-great-niece of M.Yu. Lermontov), ​​worked first as a teacher, later as a paramedic. After the birth of Arkady, three more children appeared in the family - his younger sisters. The parents of the future writer were no strangers to revolutionary ideas and even participated in revolutionary events 1905. Fearing arrest, the Golikovs left Lgov in 1908, and since 1912 they lived in Arzamas. It was this city that the future writer Arkady Gaidar considered his “small” homeland: here he studied at a real school, from here at the age of 14 he went to the front of the Civil War.

Pyotr Isidorovich Golikov was drafted into the army in 1914; after the February Revolution, soldiers of the 11th Siberian Regiment elected him commissar, then former warrant officer Golikov headed the regiment. After October 1917, he became commissar of division headquarters. Pyotr Isidorovich spent the entire Civil War at the fronts. He never returned to his family.

Natalya Arkadyevna, Gaidar’s mother, worked as a paramedic in Arzamas until 1920, then headed the county health department in the city of Przhevalsk, and was a member of the county-city revolutionary committee. She died of tuberculosis in 1924.

It is obvious that a boy from an intelligent family, such as Arkady was at the beginning of the Civil War, could perceive the unfolding events as a kind of game. He might not care on whose side he would realize his desire to accomplish a feat. However, the “revolutionary past” and the beliefs of his parents had an impact: in August 1918, Arkady Golikov submitted an application to join the Arzamas organization of the RCP. By the decision of the Arzamas Committee of the RCP (b) dated August 29, 1918, Golikov was accepted into the party “with the right of an advisory vote in his youth and until the completion of party education.”

In his autobiography, Gaidar writes:

According to the most authoritative “Gaidar expert” B. Kamov, Arkady’s mother brought him to the headquarters of the communist battalion. She was unable to feed four children alone, and Natalya Arkadyevna asked to take her son into the service. Battalion commander E.O. Efimov ordered that the literate and tall, precocious teenager be assigned as an adjutant to the headquarters. Arkady was given a uniform and put on allowance. The family began to receive rations. A month later, Efimov was suddenly appointed commander of the troops protecting the railways of the Republic. The commander took the smart boy, who had an excellent understanding of documents and was efficient, with him to Moscow. Arkady was not yet 15 years old at that time.

The Red Army soldier Golikov successfully served first as an adjutant, then as head of the communications team, but constantly “bombed” his superiors with reports of transfer to the front. In March 1919, after another report, he was sent to command courses, which were soon transferred from Moscow to Kyiv.

The situation in Kyiv did not allow the cadets to study calmly: they were continually created into combat detachments, sent to eliminate gangs, and used on internal fronts. At the end of August 1919, early graduation took place at the courses, but the new painters were not distributed in parts. Of these, the Shock Brigade was formed here, which immediately set out to defend Kyiv from the Whites. On August 27, in the battle near Boyarka, platoon commander Arkady Golikov replaced the killed half-company Yakov Oksyuz.

The years 1919-1920 pass for the newly made commander in battles and battles: the Polish Front, Kuban, the North Caucasus, Tavria.

“...I live like a wolf, I command a company, we fight with bandits with might and main”, - Arkady Golikov reported to his comrade Alexander Plesko in Arzamas in the summer of 1920.

He is not yet seventeen, but not a boy: combat experience, three fronts, wounds, two shell shocks. The last one was on the attack, when the battalion occupied the Tuba Pass. Life path elected - career commander of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.

From the autobiography of A. Gaidar:

Accepted to the junior squad of company commanders, Arkady Golikov graduates from “Vystrel” in the senior, tactical, squad. During his studies, he undergoes a short internship as a battalion commander and regiment commander, in March 1921 he took command of the 23rd reserve rifle regiment of the 2nd reserve rifle brigade of the Oryol Military District, then was appointed commander of a battalion that acted against two rebel “armies” Antonov in the Tambov province. At the end of June 1921, the commander of the troops in the Tambov province M.N. Tukhachevsky signed an order appointing Arkady Golikov, who was not yet 18 years old at that time, as commander of the 58th separate anti-banditry regiment.

Regimental Commander

Started with regimental command new stage Arkady Gaidar's life is perhaps the most controversial. According to some biographers, during this period Golikov showed himself to be a decisive, talented commander who defended the gains of Soviet power. Others will say: a cruel executioner and murderer.

We should not forget that in civil struggle there is neither right nor wrong. Still a very young man, formerly an intelligent boy, Arkady Golikov, like many of his peers, scorched by the Civil War, was hardly psychologically prepared for the activities that he had to conduct when he led the combat sector in the fight against banditry. The newly appointed commander of the Red Army tried as best he could to live up to the role imposed on him, but in reality he turned out not to be an executioner, but only a victim of the bloody military era and his own delusions.

After the defeat of the “Antonovschina” in the fall of 1921, commander Arkady Golikov received personal praise from Tukhachevsky for the work done. They wanted to send him to Moscow, giving him a recommendation for admission to the General Staff Academy. However, the “experienced” commander had to lead one of the battalions of special forces units (CHON) and go to Bashkiria, where the need arose to fight kulak and nationalist gangs. The Chonovites failed to fight in Bashkiria: the battalion participated only in a few minor skirmishes, but already at the end of September 1921, Gaidar was transferred to Khakassia. Here, large gangs of the Cossack Solovyov intensified their activities.

The social basis of the rebel movement in Khakassia was the dissatisfaction of the local population with the policies of the communist regime (surplus appropriations, mobilizations, labor duties, the seizure of pastures necessary for the Khakass herders). The new government, regardless of the real interests and objective capabilities of the “wild” population, tried to forcefully suppress pockets of spontaneous resistance, destroying the way of life that had developed over centuries.

Under these conditions, Solovyov’s “criminal gang,” pursued by punitive detachments, acquired the status of protector of the Khakass population. The size of the gang at different times ranged from two squadrons to twenty people.

Finding himself with small forces in an area where, in his opinion, half of the population supported the “bandits,” Golikov informed the commander of the provincial CHON about the need, based on the experience of the Tambov region, to introduce harsh sanctions against the “semi-wild foreigners,” up to the complete destruction of the “bandit” uluses. Among the Khakass, indeed, there were many people who sympathized with the bandits, so the Chonovites quickly adopted such methods of struggle as the capture and execution of hostages (women and children), forced expropriation of property, and executions (flogging) of everyone suspected of having connections with the rebels.

No real documents have been preserved confirming the direct participation of Arkady Golikov and his subordinates in the listed atrocities.

What is known is that the representative of the military authorities failed to establish relations with the local Soviets and with the representatives of the provincial department of the GPU. In his opinion, the GPE officers monitored the behavior of Chonov’s commanders more and wrote denunciations against them, but did not engage in their direct responsibilities - creating a local intelligence network. Golikov had to personally recruit spies for himself. He acted as any Red Army commander in his place would have acted: he arrested those whom he suspected of having connections with the gang, and then forced them to work as his intelligence officers. The young commander had no experience, and he was guided only by the combat situation and the laws of war, because he did not know other laws. Naturally, numerous reports and complaints to higher authorities rained down on Golikov.

On June 3, 1922, a special department of the provincial department of the GPU began case No. 274 on charges against A.P. Golikova for abuse of official position. A special commission headed by battalion commander J. A. Wittenberg went to the site, which, having collected complaints from the population and local authorities, concluded its report with a demand for execution former boss combat site.

However, on June 7, the resolution of Commander V.N. was transferred from the headquarters of the provincial CHON to the special department. Kakoulina: “Under no circumstances arrest, replace and recall.”

On June 14 and 18, Golikov was interrogated at the OGPU in Krasnoyarsk. By that time, four departments had opened criminal cases against him: the ChON, the GPU, the prosecutor's office of the 5th Army and the control commission under the Yenisei provincial party committee. Each authority conducted its own investigation. During interrogations, the accused claimed that he shot without trial only bandits who themselves admitted to their crimes. However, no one in his unit carried out “legal formalities”, such as keeping an interrogation record or registering a death sentence. Gaidar explained this by saying that there was no competent clerk at the headquarters, and he himself was too busy to bother with unnecessary papers. During the investigation, it was nevertheless found out that most of the crimes attributed to Golikov were the work of other people or simply inventions of the informers themselves.

On June 30, the provincial department of the GPU transferred Golikov’s case to the control commission of the Yenisei provincial committee for consideration along party lines. The rest of the cases were also transferred there. On August 18, the party body considered this matter at a joint meeting of the presidium of the provincial committee and the CC of the RCP (b). Almost all charges, except for illegal expropriations and the shooting of three bandit accomplices, were dropped against Golikov. According to the decree of September 1, 1922, he was not expelled from the party (as some “researchers” now claim), but only transferred to the category of subjects for two years, with deprivation of the opportunity to occupy responsible positions.

As a result of the unrest, old traumas began to take their toll. Three years earlier, a fifteen-year-old company commander was wounded and at the same time seriously concussed by a nearby shell that exploded. The shock wave damaged the brain. In addition, the young man fell unsuccessfully from his horse and hit his head and back. In peacetime, this injury might not have had such severe consequences, but during the war, Gaidar quickly developed a traumatic neurosis. Some eyewitnesses of his actions in the Tambov region and Khakassia claimed that commander Golikov, despite his youth, actively abused alcohol. People who knew Gaidar closely already in the 1930s recalled that he could often look and act like he was drunk, although in fact he did not drink. This is exactly how the writer’s attacks of neurosis began. After the trial in Krasnoyarsk, Gaidar was immediately scheduled for a psychiatric examination.

From Arkady’s letter to his sister Natasha:

This diagnosis was made to a nineteen-year-old boy! The young “veteran” was treated for a long time in Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, and Moscow. Attacks of traumatic neurosis occurred less frequently and were not so acute. But the doctors’ conclusion crossed out the dream of an academy. In fact, Arkady Golikov was deprived of the opportunity to continue his service in the Red Army. The only way out for a disabled victim of the Civil War was writing.

Writer

Konstantin Fedin recalled:

Previously there was a regimental commander - understandable. I decided to become a writer - that’s also understandable. But who was he then when he appeared in the editorial office of the almanac in a tunic and an army cap, on the faded band of which there was a dark trace of a recently removed red star?

This question is answered by registration sheet No. 12371 of the Moscow City Military Commissariat, compiled for A.P. Golikov. in 1925. In the column “Are you in service and where?” Answer: “unemployed.”

It is known that from the end of 1923 until his appearance in Leningrad in 1925, former regiment commander Arkady Golikov wandered around the country, doing odd jobs, leading the life of a half-traveller, half-tramp.

The work submitted to the editor did not at all resemble a novel. It was the story “In the Days of Defeats and Victories,” which was published in the almanac, but it went almost unnoticed by the reader. Critics spoke unflatteringly about the story, considering it a weak and mediocre work. But failures do not stop Gaidar. In April 1925, his story “RVS” was published. It also did not bring the author widespread fame, but was liked by young readers.

Arkady Golikov again spends the summer of 1925 wandering, and in the fall he ends up in Moscow, where he meets his Arzamas friend Alexander Plesko, who at that time was “well established”: he worked in Perm as the deputy executive editor of the newspaper of the district party committee “Zvezda”. Alexander Plesko advised Arkady to go to Perm. The newspaper is good, the staff is young and friendly, and in addition, Nikolai Kondratyev, their mutual friend from Arzamas, collaborates with Zvezda. Friends willingly accepted Arkady into their circle. Already on the eve of the 8th anniversary October revolution his material appeared in the holiday issue of Zvezda. Here the pseudonym “Gaidar” appears for the first time. Arkady Golikov signed his story about civil war"Corner House"

Nickname

Writer A. Rozanov in 1979, in his essay “Read and Think,” recalls the story of A.P. Gaidar on the origin of the pseudonym:

Arkady Petrovich continued further - “... In the twenty-first year, our unit drove out bandits from one village in Khakassia. I’m riding slowly down the street, suddenly an old woman runs up, strokes the horse and says to me in her own language: “Gaidar! Gaidar! This seems to mean “daring, dashing horseman.” And this coincidence struck me so much that later I signed one of the first printed feuilletons - Gaidar...”

The writer’s son Timur Gaidar also began to adhere to this version.

Subsequently, one of the biographers interpreted the translation of this word from Mongolian as follows: “Gaidar is a horseman galloping ahead.”

Sounds nice. But it was worth doing a simple thing - looking through dictionaries to make sure: neither in Mongolian nor in two dozen other eastern languages ​​such a meaning of the word “gaidar” or “haidar” simply does not exist.

In the Khakass language, “khaidar” means: “where, in which direction?” Perhaps, when the Khakass saw that the head of the combat area for combating banditry was going somewhere at the head of a detachment, they asked each other: “Haidar Golikov? Where is Golikov going? Which way?" - to warn others about impending danger.

Permian period

In Perm, Gaidar worked for a long time in local archives, studying the events of the period of the first Russian revolution in Motovilikha and the fate of the Ural resident Alexander Lbov. He was helped in everything by the dark-haired, mischievous, agile girl Rakhil (Liya) Solomyanskaya, an active Komsomol member, organizer of the first printed pioneer newspaper in Perm, “The Miracle Ant.” She was seventeen, Gaidar was 21. In December 1925 they got married. For Arkady Petrovich this was already the second marriage. In 1921 he was married to Maria Plaksina. Their son Evgeniy died in infancy. In December 1926, Rachel also gave birth to a boy. This happened in Arkhangelsk, where Rachel temporarily went to stay with her mother. From Perm, Gaidar sent a telegram to his wife: “Name your son Timur.”

With son Timur

While living in Perm, Gaidar worked on the story “Lbovshchina” (“Life for nothing”), which was published with a sequel in the regional newspaper “Zvezda”, and then came out as a separate book. A good fee was received. Arkady Petrovich decided to spend it on traveling around the country without vouchers or business trips. He was kept company by his peer, also a journalist, Nikolai Kondratyev. First Central Asia: Tashkent, Kara-Kum. Then crossing the Caspian Sea to the city of Baku.

Before arriving in the capital of Azerbaijan, they didn’t count their money, but here, at the eastern bazaar, it turned out that the travelers couldn’t even pay for a watermelon. Friends quarreled. Both had to travel with hares to Rostov-on-Don. The clothes were worn out, and the holey trousers had to be sewn onto the underwear. In this form you will not go either to the editorial office of the Rostov "Hammer" or to a book publishing house where they could help a children's writer with money. The travelers went to the freight railway station and worked for several days in a row loading watermelons. No one here cared about their clothes, since the others were no better dressed. And no one, of course, had any idea that the watermelons were being loaded by a writer, a former regiment commander. The journey, full of romantic adventures, ended with the creation of the story “Riders of the Impregnable Mountains” (published in Moscow in 1927).

Gaidar soon had to leave Perm. Because of the topical feuilleton published in Zvezda under his signature, a big scandal broke out. The writer was brought to court for libel and insult to personality. The charges of libel against him were dropped, but for the insult that took place on the pages of the newspaper, the author of the feuilleton was sentenced to a week's arrest. The arrest was replaced by public censure, but the editors of the publication had to answer for the insult. Gaidar’s feuilletons were never published in Zvezda. The scandalous journalist moved to Sverdlovsk, where he briefly collaborated with the Ural Worker newspaper, and in 1927 he left for Moscow.

The first works that brought Arkady Gaidar fame were the fascinating stories for youth “On the Count's Ruins” (1928) and “An Ordinary Biography” (published in the “Roman Newspaper for Children” in 1929).

Khabarovsk

In 1931, Gaidar’s wife Liya Lazarevna left for someone else and took her son with her. Arkady was left alone, homesick, unable to work, and went to Khabarovsk as a correspondent for the Pacific Star newspaper.

In the fifth issue of the almanac "The Past", published in Paris in 1988, the memoirs of journalist Boris Zaks about Arkady Gaidar (B. Zaks. Eyewitness Notes. pp. 378-390), with whom they worked together and lived in Khabarovsk, were published.

According to B. Sachs, after the divorce from his wife, Gaidar’s illness became especially worse. At times his behavior resembled violent insanity: he rushed at people with threats of murder, broke glass, and pointedly cut himself with a razor.

The events described in the memoirs allow the doctor to qualify Gaidar’s actions as “replacement therapy”: the physical pain from the cuts made it possible to escape from that terrible state of mind caused by his illness. Those around him could perceive this as a suicide attempt, and therefore in Khabarovsk the writer again ends up in a psychiatric hospital, where he spends more than a year.

From the diary of Arkady Gaidar:

Children's writer Arkady Gaidar

Gaidar returns to Moscow in the fall of 1932. Here the writer has no permanent housing, no family, no money. This is how Gaidar describes his first impressions of his stay in Moscow:

But his works for youth are published in central magazines. Books are published and republished in the capital's publishing houses. Gradually fame, high fees, fame, success come...

Many people who knew the writer Arkady Gaidar in life considered him a cheerful, even reckless, but in his own way a very strong and integral person. In any case, outwardly he gave just such an impression. He himself believed in what he wrote and could make others believe. Real, resounding success came to Arkady Petrovich after the publication of the autobiographical story “School” (1930). This was followed by the stories “Distant Countries” (1932), “Military Secret” (1935), which included the famous fairy tale about Malchish-Kibalchish. In 1936, the magazine “Children's Literature” published a story “The Blue Cup”, remarkable for its lyricism, which caused a lot of discussion. In the end, the story was banned from further publication personally by the People's Commissar of Education N.K. Krupskaya. During the author’s lifetime, “The Blue Cup” was no longer published, but, in our opinion, this is the most talented and deeply psychological work of Arkady Petrovich. Gaidar was one of the first in children's literature to present the child as not just a unifying and reconciling factor in the family. Having made the child a full participant in “adult” relationships, the author provides his parents with the opportunity to look at the situation with different eyes, reconsider their actions, and evaluate them differently.

According to the recollections of Timur’s son, his father always very much regretted that he had to part with army service. Remaining true to the era of the Civil War that raised him, Gaidar always wore semi-military clothes, never wore suits and ties, and opened the window in any weather if some military unit was marching down the street singing. Once he bought a huge portrait of Budyonny, which did not fit in the room, and Arkady Petrovich had to give his wardrobe to the janitor in order to place the image of his beloved military leader on the wall.

Apart from writing, Gaidar did not find any other occupation in peacetime. He devoted himself entirely to literature, without reserve, grasping at war memories as the most important and precious thing in life. Creativity obviously helped the writer fill the inner emptiness and realize his failed dreams and aspirations. It is no coincidence that in his works almost all adult characters (male fathers) are military men, officers of the Red Army, and participants in the Civil War.

In 1938, Arkady Gaidar for some reason left Moscow for Klin. Why exactly in Klin is a “military secret” for all his biographers. It is difficult to follow the logic of a sick person, but it was in this town that Arkady Petrovich decided to “put down roots.” He rented a room in Klin and almost immediately married the daughter of his landlord, Dora Matveevna Chernyshova, and adopted her daughter Zhenya.

Zhenya recalled how one day her dad took her and two girlfriends for a walk around Klin. And he told them to be sure to take empty buckets with them. He brought the girls to the city center, blindfolded them with ribbons and filled them with ice cream in buckets... to the top!

Arkady Petrovich wrote his famous story “Timur and His Team” in Klin in 1940. True, at first it was a script for a film. In the continuation issues it was published by Pionerskaya Pravda. Each issue of the newspaper was discussed at a debate - with the participation of writers, professional journalists and, of course, pioneers.

In Klin, the writer worked as if he was trying to save himself from attacks with creative tension mental illness. Literally “bingely”, in a few years “The Fate of the Drummer”, “Chuk and Gek”, “Smoke in the Forest”, “The Commandant of the Snow Fortress”, “Winter of 41” and “Timur’s Oath” were written.

Reading the memoirs of people close to Gaidar and his works, full of optimism and faith in the bright future of the Soviet country, it is difficult to believe that almost the entire period of 1939-41 Gaidar was haunted by a serious illness. He spent a lot of time in psychiatric clinics, often suffered and did not believe himself.

From a letter to the writer R. Fraerman (1941):

In this letter, in our opinion, Gaidar’s attitude to the reality around him is clearly manifested. He could not help but understand that everyone around him was lying, that he himself was stooping to previously impossible lies: he did not believe himself, he was deceiving himself, inventing unrealistic circumstances in the lives of his heroes. Perhaps even in everyday life he goes against his convictions and principles, tries to arrange his personal life, knowing that his first wife was repressed, creates the illusion of a never-developed family with Chernyshova, and again plunges headlong into saving creativity.

By 1941, Gaidar's talent and fame reached their apogee. It was in the early 40s that his most famous works were published. Perhaps Gaidar would have written more than one wonderful book, but the Great Patriotic War began.

Death

In June 1941, Arkady Petrovich Gaidar turned only 37 years old. There was not even a hint of gray in his light, light hair; he looked quite healthy, young, full of strength, but the medical commission refused to allow the writer, as a disabled person, to be called up for active military service.

A.P. Gaidar, 1941

Then Gaidar went to the editorial office of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper and offered his services as a war correspondent. On July 18, 1941, he received a pass from the General Staff of the Red Army to the active army and left for the Southwestern Front. IN military uniform, but with plastic buttons on the tunic. Civilian and unarmed.

After the encirclement of units of the Southwestern Front in the Uman-Kyiv region in September 1941, Arkady Petrovich Gaidar ended up in Gorelov’s partisan detachment. He was a machine gunner in the detachment. He died on October 26, 1941 near the village of Leplyavo, Kanevsky district, Cherkasy region. The real circumstances of his death have not yet been clarified. According to official version, a group of partisans stumbled upon a German ambush near a railway embankment near the village of Leplyavo. Gaidar was the first to see the Germans and managed to shout: “Guys, Germans!”, after which he was killed by a machine-gun burst. This saved the lives of his comrades - they managed to escape. The fact that it was Arkady Gaidar who was killed became clear only after the war, thanks to the testimony of two surviving witnesses (S. Abramov and V. Skrypnik). But there are other testimonies from local residents who claim that in the winter of 1941-1942 they hid in their house a man very similar to the writer Arkady Gaidar. In the spring of 1942, this man, introducing himself as Arkady Ivanov, left them, intending to cross the front line. His further fate is unknown to anyone.

Arkady Petrovich Gaidar

January 22, 2008 marks the 104th anniversary of the birth of Arkady Petrovich Gaidar (n.f. - Golikov)

Gaidar translated from Tatar means “horseman galloping ahead.” In the old days, warriors - horsemen sent forward a rider who galloped ahead of everyone and peered into the unknown distance, always ready to warn the detachment. Arkady Petrovich Gaidar chose this pseudonym for himself. Born in the era of the Great October Revolution, he always walked ahead, illuminating the path to the future with his works, showing an example of civic courage, patriotism, high morality and spiritual beauty.

The future writer was born on January 22, 1904 in the city of Lgov, Kursk province. Father Pyotr Isidorovich is a rural teacher, after the October Revolution, commissar of the 35th division, party member. Mother Natalya Arkadyevna is a teacher, later a paramedic, and a party member after the October Revolution. Arkady spent the first five years of his life in Lgov. The boy's unique character developed unusually early. None of the relatives and friends in the Golikov family remember little Arkady being capricious over trifles, complaining about his sisters and comrades. In 1910, the Golikov family moved to Nizhny Novgorod, and in 1912 to Arzamas. They always considered Arzamas their hometown. Arkady grew up and studied in this town. Strong beyond his years, blue-eyed, with a big forehead, Arkady soon became the most important “organizer” among the neighborhood boys. Little Arkady passionately loved the theater and almost always took part in school plays.

I grew up in the city of Arzamas.

There, the bells of thirty churches buzzed loudly, but no factory whistles could be heard.

Children's writer Arkady Petrovich Gaidar lived in this house from 1912 to 1918. At first they settled on Bolshaya Street in house 128, but for a large family of seven people; the apartment turned out to be cramped and not very comfortable. Therefore, Pyotr Isidorovich and Natalya Arkadyevna found a separate wooden house

on Novoplotinnaya Street, where they lived for more than six years.

The house is wooden, covered with planks, the log house was built in the early 70s of the 19th century. The house has four rooms. By right side

the door to the living room, parents' room, on the left is the entrance to the kitchen and nursery. Living room. The largest and brightest room in the house. IN Sundays the whole family gathered around a square table. A kerosene lamp with an elegant colored lampshade was lit. The father read books to the children, told fascinating stories about the life and customs of other peoples, and together they wrote short stories and poetry. “I don’t know what they were about,” Gaidar said later, “about Little Red Riding Hood or about gray wolf

? But I remember my big dream of a good life for the rest of my life.”

The parents' room is separated from the living room by a thin partition. On an antique chest of drawers there is a small, elegant, rectangular-shaped carriage clock. The thing that Natalya Arkadyevna always treasured so much. This watch, and also a silver cup from the traveling chest of her father, Lieutenant A.G. Salkova were a heirloom of the whole family.. The smallest room in the house. A large Russian stove takes up a lot of space. There are clay pots and frying pans on the pole; in the corner there are grips and a poker. There is a copper washbasin by the window, under it there is a similar basin on high metal legs, and a towel hangs. There is a kitchen table against the wall, on it is a large copper samovar nicknamed “wet”. The whole family loved to drink tea from this samovar.

Children's room. At the oval table, Arkady made hasty, meager entries in his diary, studied his homework, agonized over a line of poetry, and confided his thoughts in letters to his father at the front. Hanging above the bed geographic map- a guiding star for travel to “distant lands”. A shelf with books once read by the realist Golikov.

“There were always a lot of books in the house: they stood on the shelves, lay on the table in the bedroom, and even Arkasha and Taechka at that time had their own books with pictures, for which my mother wrote poems.” But Arkady especially loved leafing through thick volumes encyclopedic dictionary Brockhaus and Efron. For the rest of his life, he retained the habit of reading “through and through” encyclopedic dictionaries.

Arkady was thirteen years old when the Great Patriotic War happened.

Relatives sent Arkady to the Arzamas school. But classes had not yet begun when war broke out. My father was taken as a soldier. Gaidar remembered the moments of farewell to his father for the rest of his life. Everyone was crying: sisters, mother, neighbors. Only a ten-year-old boy stood at the threshold, biting his lips, bracing himself and not crying. Natalya Arkadyevna was left alone with four children. A harsh life began for the Golikov family. No matter how difficult it was for someone who lived in a remote province to understand the pandemonium of political disputes, he managed to choose the only right path - he joined the Bolsheviks. As a fourteen-year-old teenager (hiding his age), he voluntarily went to the front. At the age of fifteen he graduated from the Kyiv commander courses. He was not seventeen years old when he took command of the regiment. Without a doubt, the role of family and home education was great in this. Arkady's parents belonged to that part of the Russian democratic intelligentsia who saw their primary duty in selfless service to the people and an uncompromising struggle for justice. Golikov could not imagine his life outside military career, was preparing to enter military academy. But numerous injuries and illnesses forced him to demobilize from the army in 1924. This was the collapse of all his hopes. In despair, Golikov writes " Farewell letter Red Army", where signs of literary talent had already appeared. (The first story "In the Days of Defeat and Victory", written at the front, did not bring him success). But still, after painful thoughts about what to do next, he decides to "serve pen"
A new life has begun for Arkady Golikov, the life of the writer Arkady Petrovich Gaidar in books. There are many versions of the origin literary pseudonym writer. One of them is already contained in Gaidar’s biographical data: Golikov Arkady from Arzamas.

Arkady Gaidar with his son Timur

He conveys his romantic perception of the revolution in anticipation of the bright future ahead to young readers. In his heroic and romantic works, he confidentially talks to them about the Motherland, about friendship and betrayal.

Gaidar entered children's literature with his story about the civil war, "RVS" (1926). Then books were written on which more than one generation of children were raised. These are: “School” (1930), “Distant Countries” (1932), “The Tale of a Military Secret, of Malchish-Kibalchish and His Firm Word” (1933), “Military Secret” (1935), “The Blue Cup” (1936 ), "The Fate of the Drummer" (1939), "Chuk and Gek" (1939). All of Gaidar’s books teach only good things, which is why many of them are now included in the school literature curriculum.
Due to health reasons, Gaidar could not be drafted into the army. But when Nazi Germany attacked our country, he did everything to be at the front. He went to war as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda. He was not accepted into the regular army; he became a partisan. He died helping his comrades. This happened on October 26, 1941 in a battle near the village of Leplyava, when a small group of partisans, returning from a combat mission, stumbled upon an SS ambush. Gaidar was buried on the high bank of the Dnieper in Kanev.

He died in a grove near Leplyavoya
Like a partisan, behind enemy lines,
And, autumn eternal glory,
Sleeping near the Dnepropetrovsk shores.
S. Marshak.

Museums of A.P. Gaidar have been opened in Arzamas and Lgov. The name of Arkady Petrovich Gaidar has been given to many children's libraries in the country. In 1981, the "Gaidar Badge" was established to reward the best organizers educational work with children and teenagers. Almost all works of A.P. Gaidar filmed. The first film to be released was “Duma about the Cossack Golota” based on the story “RVS” (1937), later the films “Chuk and Gek” (1953), “The Fate of the Drummer” (1955), “Military Secret” (1958) and other. The three-part film “School”, the films “Bumbarash” (based on early stories), “Let It Shine” and others were created especially for television.

The collections of the Russian State Children's Library contain all the works of A.P. Gaidar. There are also early editions of his books: The Fourth Dugout. - M.: Detgiz, 1935. - 36 p.: ill.

• Blue Cup / A.P. Gaidar; Artist B. Dekhterev. - M.: Children's literature, 1936. - First edition of the book.
• Smoke in the forest / A.P. Gaidar; Artist Ermolaev. - M.-L. : Children's literature, 1939. - First edition of the book.
• Hot stone / A.P. Gaidar; Artist I. Kharkevich. - M.-L.: Children's literature, 1949.

The story written on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, “Timur and His Team” (1941), is still very popular among children. It first appeared as a film script, then the writer wrote a book of the same name. The exceptional popularity of the film was explained not only by the vitality of the image of its protagonist, who immediately transcended the screen and became an ideal and example for many thousands of his peers. The word “Timurovets” clearly reflected the best traits characteristic of a schoolchild in the Soviet country: an insatiable thirst for activity, nobility, courage, and the ability to stand up for one’s interests. This work gave a noble direction to the activities of the pioneer organization - the Timur movement. Operating everywhere, Timur's teams helped the families of soldiers who had left and died at the front.

During the Great Patriotic War, this movement grew and expanded literally every day: only in Russian Federation Timur's teams numbered over 2 million people in their ranks. The title “Timurovets” was obligatory; it had a disciplinary effect on the guys, encouraging them to noble, patriotic deeds. The activities of the Timurites had enormous socio-political and pedagogical significance.

Unfortunately, the movement suffered the fate that the writer presciently warned about in his film script “Timur’s Oath”: the collapse of Timur’s team under the pressure of bureaucratic window dressing.

Today, many schools are trying to revive this movement. A Timur movement was created in Altai - guys from the villages of Brusentsevo and Romanovo. help veterans and elderly people. In most schools in Primorye, Timur's movement to provide practical assistance to veterans has resumed. Participants in the patriotic education of youth in Primorye decided to intensify work on the patriotic education of youth in educational institutions, to involve young people in the preparation of such significant dates as the 65th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War, the 70th anniversary of the events on Khasan Island, the 40th anniversary of the events on Damanski Island. The Timur movement, which originated in the 40s, is still active. There are units all over the country that have different names, but general meaning activities. Participants in these associations and organizations consider the goal of their activities to be assistance and support to veterans and members of their families. The children's and youth movement in Russia is an indisputable fact today. The last decade has provided an opportunity for children's and youth associations not only to actually prove their viability, but also to become independent legal entities influencing state youth policy. A legend is not only a poeticized memory of something that has become distant in time. This is also the second existence that is not subject to death, when a person continues to participate in people’s life and influence its course. This is how Arkady Gaidar lives with us. In conclusion, I would like to remind you that A. Gaidar occupies a very special place in children's literature. At one time, S.Ya. Marshak wrote an article “A book for children should be a work of art,” in which he cited the following hierarchy of remarkable literary figures: - “Alexey Maksimovich Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Arkady Gaidar.” He called him “an all-Union pioneer leader who knew how to be a cheerful comrade to our guys, and a slightly crafty, on his own mind, educator who did without lectures.” From today's perspective, let us add: A. Gaidar was far ahead of European children's literature. Long before JK Rowling with her Harry Potter, he managed to create the image of Timur, defeating the evils of life with his decency and kindness, attractive to millions of children.

Belinsky once wrote that one must be born a children's writer.

Arkady Gaidar was indeed born a children's writer. He was cheerful and good-natured, like a child. His word did not diverge from deed, thought from feeling, life from poetry. He was the author and hero of his books. This is how he will remain forever in the memory of people who happened to know him during his lifetime, and in the minds of those who learn about him from books written by Gaidar and about Gaidar.

Arkady Petrovich Gaidar (Golikov) was born on January 9 (22), 1904 in the city of Lgov, Kursk province, into a family of teachers. The boy spent most of his childhood in Arzamas - small town Nizhny Novgorod region. Here the future writer studied at a real school.

Arkady was selfless already at an early age. When his father was taken to the front during the First World War, the boy ran away from home to also go to fight. However, he was detained on the way.

In 1918, in a short biography of Gaidar, it happened an important event- Fourteen-year-old Arkady joined the Communist Party and began working for the newspaper Molot. At the end of the year he was enlisted in the Red Army.

Service in the active army

After completing command training courses in Moscow in 1919, Golikov was appointed assistant platoon commander. In 1911 he graduated from the Higher Rifle School ahead of schedule. Soon he was appointed commander of a section of the Nizhny Novgorod regiment, fought on the Don, on the Caucasian Front, near Sochi.

In 1922, Golikov participated in the suppression of the anti-Soviet insurgent movement in Khakassia, whose leader was I. Solovyov. Heading the command of the second combat area in the Yenisei province, Arkady Petrovich gave rather strict orders aimed at cruel treatment of local residents who opposed the arrival of Soviet power.

In May 1922, by order of Golikov, five uluses were shot. The provincial department of the GPU found out about what happened. Arkady Petrovich was demobilized with a diagnosis of “traumatic neurosis”, which arose after an unsuccessful fall from a horse. This event became a turning point in Gaidar’s biography.

Literary activity

In 1925, Golikov published the story “In the Days of Defeats and Victories” in the Leningrad almanac “Kovsh”. Soon the writer moved to Perm, where he first began publishing under the pseudonym Gaidar. In 1930, work on the works “School” and “The Fourth Dugout” was completed.

Since 1932, Arkady Petrovich has worked as a traveling correspondent for the Pacific Star newspaper. In 1932 - 1938, the novels and stories “Distant Countries”, “Military Secret”, “The Blue Cup”, “The Fate of the Drummer” were published. In 1939 - 1940, the writer completed work on his most famous works for children - “Timur and his team”, “Chuk and Gek”, which are now studied in primary school.

The Great Patriotic War

During the Great Patriotic War, the writer Gaidar worked as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda. During this period, Arkady Petrovich created the essays “The Bridge”, “Rockets and Grenades”, “At the Crossing”, “At the Front Edge”, and the philosophical fairy tale “Hot Stone”.

In 1941 he served as a machine gunner in Gorelov's partisan detachment.

On October 26, 1941, Arkady Petrovich Gaidar was killed by the Germans near the village of Leplyavo, Kanevsky district. The writer was buried in 1947 in Kanev, Cherkasy region.

Other biography options

• According to the most famous version, the pseudonym “Gaidar” stands for “Golikov Arkady D’ARzamas” (by analogy with the name d’Artagnan from Dumas’ novel).
• In 1939, Gaidar was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor, and in 1964 he was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
• Arkady Gaidar suffered from severe headaches and mood swings and was repeatedly treated in a psychiatric clinic.
• Gaidar’s personal life did not develop immediately. The writer was married three times - to nurse Maria Plaksina (their son died before he was two years old), Komsomol member Liya Solomyanskaya (their son Timur was born in the marriage) and Dora Chernysheva (adopted his wife’s daughter).
• Among Gaidar's close friends were the writers Fraerman and Paustovsky.

Biography test

To test your knowledge of Gaidar’s short biography, try answering the test questions.