Literary and historical notes of a young technician. Gaidar stories

GAYDAR, ARKADY PETROVICH(1904-1941), real name Golikov, Russian Soviet writer. Born on January 9 (22), 1904 in Lgov, Kursk province. The son of a peasant teacher and a noblewoman mother who participated in revolutionary events 1905. Fearing arrest, the Golikovs left Lgov in 1909, and from 1912 they lived in Arzamas. He worked for the local newspaper "Molot", where he first published his poems, and joined the RCP(b).
From 1918 - in the Red Army (as a volunteer, hiding his age), in 1919 he studied at command courses in Moscow and Kyiv, then at the Moscow Higher Rifle School. In 1921 - commander of a section of the Nizhny Novgorod regiment. He fought on the Caucasian front, on the Don, near Sochi, participated in the suppression of the Antonov rebellion, in Khakassia - against the “emperor of the taiga” I.N. Solovyov, where, accused of arbitrary execution, he was expelled from the party for six months and sent on long leave for nervous disease, which did not leave him subsequently throughout his life. A naive-romantic, recklessly joyful perception of the revolution in anticipation of the coming “bright kingdom of socialism”, reflected in many of Gaidar’s works of an autobiographical nature, addressed mainly to youth (RVS stories, 1925, Seryozhka Chubatov, Levka Demchenko, The End of Levka Demchenko, Bandit’s Nest, all 1926-1927, Smoke in the Forest, 1935; story School, original title: Ordinary biography, 1930, Distant countries, 1932, Military secret, 1935, including a textbook Soviet time The tale of the Military Secret, of Malchish-Kibalchish and his firm word, 1935, Bumbarash, unfinished, 1937), in adulthood is replaced by grave doubts in the diary entries (“I dreamed of people killed in childhood”).
With a pseudonym (Turkic word - “horseman galloping ahead”) he first signed the short story Corner House, created in 1925 in Perm, where he settled in the same year and where, according to archival materials, he began work on a story about the struggle of local workers against the autocracy - Life to nothing (other name: Lbovshchina, 1926). In the Perm newspaper "Zvezda" and other publications he publishes feuilletons, poems, notes about travel in Central Asia, fantastic story The Secret of the Mountain, an excerpt from the story Knights of the Impregnable Mountains (other name: Horsemen of the Impregnable Mountains, 1927), the poem Machine-Gun Blizzard. From 1927 he lived in Sverdlovsk, where he published the story Forest Brothers (other name: Davydovshchina - continuation of the story Life for Nothing) in the newspaper "Ural Worker".
In the summer of 1927, already a fairly well-known writer, he moved to Moscow, where, among many journalistic works and poems, he published a detective-adventure story On the Count's Ruins (1928, filmed in 1958, directed by V.N. Skuibin) and a number of other works, who nominated Gaidar, along with L. Kassil, R. Fraerman, among the most read creators of Russian children's prose of the 20th century. (including the stories The Blue Cup, 1936, Chuk and Gek, the story The Fate of the Drummer, both 1938, the story for radio The Fourth Dugout; the second, unfinished part of the story School, both 1930).
The fascination of the plot, the rapid lightness of the narrative, the transparent clarity of the language with the fearless introduction of significant and sometimes tragic events into the “children’s” life (The Fate of the Drummer, which tells about spy mania and repressions of the 1930s, etc.), poetic “aura”, trust and the seriousness of the tone, the indisputability of the code of “knightly” honor of camaraderie and mutual assistance - all this ensured the sincere and long-term love of young readers for Gaidar, the official classic of children's literature. The peak of the writer's lifetime popularity came in 1940 - the time of the creation of the story and the film script of the same name (film directed by A.E. Razumny) Timur and his team, telling about a brave and sympathetic pioneer boy (named after the son of Gaidar), together with his friends, surrounded by mystery care of the family of front-line soldiers. The noble initiative of the hero Gaidar served as an incentive for the creation of a broad “Timur” movement throughout the country, especially relevant in the 1940-1950s. In 1940, Gaidar wrote a sequel to Timur - Commandant of the Snow Fortress, and at the beginning of 1941 - a film script for the sequel and a screenplay for the film Timur's Oath (production 1942, directed by L.V. Kuleshov).
In July 1941, the writer went to the front as a correspondent for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, where he published essays The Bridge, At the Crossing, etc. In August-September 1941, Gaidar’s philosophical fairy tale for children, The Hot Stone, about uniqueness, inevitable difficulties and mistakes, was published in the Murzilka magazine on the path to realizing the truth.
The range of Gaidar's "children's" heroes, varied in age, character and type (among which there are many "negative" persons: Malchish-Bad, Mishka Kvakin from Timur, etc.) is complemented by characters from miniature stories for preschoolers (Vasily Kryukov, Pokhod, Marusya, Conscience , 1939-1940). Author of the film script The Passerby (1939), dedicated to the Civil War. Many of Gaidar’s works were staged and filmed (films Chuk and Gek, 1953, directed by I.V. Lukinsky; School of Courage, 1954, directed by V.P. Basov and M.V. Korchagin; The Fate of the Drummer, 1956, directed by V. V.Eisymont, etc.).
Gaidar died in battle near the village. Leplyava, Kanevsky district, Cherkasy region, October 26, 1941.

CROSSWORD "WORKS OF A.P. GAIDAR"

GAYDAR ARKADY PETROVICH

MOSAICS BASED ON THE STORIES "TIMUR AND HIS TEAM" AND "CHUK AND GEK"

QUIZ "TIMUR AND HIS TEAM"
Illustrated quiz with various question options. Intended for readers of primary and secondary school age. The program itself counts the number of correct answers and shows the time spent on the game. Suitable for individual and collective game. Transfer the game to your computer and play with pleasure. Author Galushko N.V. Archive size - 2.4 MB. DOWNLOAD QUIZ

MATERIALS TO HELP LIBRARY AND TEACHERS

Poster size - 768x1024
File size - 106 kb.
The collage was designed by N.V. Galushko.

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the image and download the poster.

COMPUTER GAMES

Click on the thumbnail picture to read the correct answers

horizontally:
1.“Hot...”
4. "Fourth..."
5. "Military..."
6.“…drummer”
7. “Chuk and...”
8.“...in the forest”
9. “On the counts...”

LIST OF METHODOLOGICAL MATERIALS

Andreeva M. S. "Hello, funny people..." : [teaching materials on working with A. P. Gaidar’s books: scheme of a book exhibition, questionnaires, Gaidar tournament] / M. S. Andreeva, M. P. Korotkova // Library at school. - 2003. - No. 23. - P.55-57.

Andrianova M. A. Lesson on "heartfelt": [lesson script based on A.P. Gaidar's story "Conscience"] // Primary School. - 1995. - No. 6. - P.77.

Arkady Petrovich Gaidar, 1904-1941: to the 100th anniversary of his birth. Vol. 1 / Author: M. S. Andreeva, M. P. Korotkova. - M.: School library, 2004. - 22 p. : 10 sec. ill. - (Exhibition in the school library).

Vladimirova L. A.“The creator of children’s favorite books and the children’s best friend” (S. Mikhalkov): [material for library lesson based on the works of A.P. Gaidar for children 7-9 years old] // Books, sheet music and toys for Katyushka and Andryushka. - 2011. - No. 3. - P.16-21.

Davydova M.A. About brave guys: a script telling about the life and work of the famous children's writer for students in grades 4-6 // Read, learn, play. - 2013. - No. 10. - P. 16-21.: ill.

Makarova B.A. The horseman galloping ahead: script for a theatrical literary and musical composition about Gaidar A.P. // Read, study, play. - 2003. - No. 11. - P. 44-50.: ill.

Chizhova L.G. The fate of the commander: a gaming event for family teams dedicated to the anniversary of A.P. Gaidar for students in grades 5-6 // We read, study, play. - 2013. - No. 10. - P. 22-25.: ill.

vertically:
1. “Timur and his...”
2. "Distant..."
3. "Blue..."
4. "Forest ..."
6. “... about the Military secret, Malchish-Kibalchish and his firm word”

Compiled by: Galushko N.V.

POEMS ABOUT GAYDAR

He will never be old.
In the eyes of readers from the portrait
Gaidar looks laughing
Dressed in a marching overcoat.
S.Ya. Marshak

Computer quiz in pictures "Heroes of the story "Timur and his team" (From the illustration, determine the name of the character in the story, describe the plot that the picture illustrates). PowerPoint-2010 (ppsx). Document size - 4.5 MB.

ADD THE WORDS TO GET THE NAMES OF A.P.’S WORKS. GAYDARA

IN MEMORY OF GAYDAR
S.Ya. Marshak

Big, cheerful, clear-eyed,
Sitting down by the children's fire,
He wrote his stories
Like an endless game.
He was a soldier and a counselor.
And every line of it
Left as a testament to the guys
Bolshevik writer.
He died somewhere near Leplyavoya,
Like a partisan, behind enemy lines,
And, overshadowed by eternal glory,
Sleeping on the banks of the Dnieper.
And every day to the warrior's grave
The wave brings the news,
What has blossomed and what has been built
In those fields where the war was going on.
So that the earth hums with construction
Where the fire of war was raging,
We won the world with courage and steadfastness
People like Gaidar.

ARKADY GAIDAR
S.V. Mikhalkov

Creator of your favorite children's books
AND true friend Guys,
He lived like a fighter should live,
And he died like a soldier.
Open a school story
Gaidar wrote it:
The hero of that story is true
And brave, even though he is small in stature.
Read Gaidar's story
And look around:
They live among us today
Timur, and Gek, and Chuk.
They are recognized by their actions.
And it doesn't matter
What is the Gaidar name?
Not always heroes.
Pages of honest, clean books
Left as a gift to the country
Fighter, Writer, Bolshevik
And Citizen - Gaidar...

OVER THE BOOK OF GAYDAR
I. Belyaev

Reading Gaidar's book
In the evening, out loud to the three of us,
Suddenly the boys started daydreaming
About your future.
We dreamed and argued a lot
And they began to dream again:
They each have a place in life
That evening I wanted to choose.
They agreed on one thing without dispute
As adults, as a gift to the Motherland
Build a beautiful city
And give him a name - Gaidar.
From a portrait in an open book
Gaidar smiled in response:
"My dear boys,
Nothing is impossible for you!”

TALK
I. Antonov

Tired from work
Mother came in the evening
And he sees that his son
The bed is not made
Why does the tea in the glass get cold?
That the floor is not swept,
What, lying on the sofa,
He is reading a book...
And his mother is offended
She said: “Son,
Someday you mom
Did you at least help with anything?”
And the son answered gloomily,
Barely looking at his mother:
“You, mom, are talking about Timur
You're stopping me from reading."
I'm sure guys
What if Gaidar lived
Famous writer
and the brave commissar, -
Then this boy
Why does a mother greet you this way?
The author of the book would say
(Or rather, I could say):
“You probably have a conscience
I fell asleep, boy!
You managed to read the story,
But I couldn’t understand!”

***
S.Ya. Marshak

Every Soviet citizen knows
Whether he is very young or old, -
That there lived a children's writer in the world,
Blue-eyed hero Gaidar.
From my youth, wearing a soldier's overcoat,
He defended his homeland,
He was best friend you guys
And for our happiness he fell in battle.

The name “Gaidar” first appeared on the pages of the Perm newspaper “Zvezda” on November 7, 1925. When did Arkady Golikov come up with this literary pseudonym and what does it mean?
In one of his diary entries from 1940, Arkady Petrovich recalls poems he wrote 17 years ago, i.e. in 1923:
It's all gone. But the fires are smoking,
The rumble of storms can be heard in the distance.
All the comrades left Gaidar.
Further, further forward we went.
Even then, in 1923, Gaidar sounded in the quatrain. Where does this ringing word come from? Arkady Petrovich himself did not answer this question. And if they insisted, he would get off with a joke or answer differently each time. Gaidar’s contemporary, fellow writer B. Zaks wrote: “Even when explaining the origin of his pseudonym, he did not always adhere to the same version, ... perhaps the most reliable is this. During the period when he commanded a separate regiment somewhere in the steppes near Minusinsk, the residents called him “Gaidar Golikov,” which means: Chief Golikov.”

Another version is offered by Arkady Petrovich’s classmate A.M. Goldin in the book “Unfictional Life”. He views the pseudonym as an anagram: G is the initial letter of the surname “Golikov”. AI - the first and last letters of the name Arkady (A-y), D - in French the prefix “de” or “d” means “from” (Arkady studied French as a child), AR - the initial letters of the name hometown- Arzamas.

This version is also supported by Arkady Gaidar’s son Timur Gaidar in the book “Golikov Arkady from Arzamas.” He writes that Arkady was a great inventor in childhood and often invented codes. G-AY-D-AR, Timur Arkadyevich believes, this is: Golikov Arkady from Arzamas, “...a pseudonym that combines the childhood call “ayda!” and the free word “haydamak” and Arkady’s favorite “r-r-r-r” rolls under the drumstick.

The version of the writer Boris Emelyanov has also become widespread: “In Mongolian, “Gaidar” means “a horseman galloping in front.” For many, this beautiful and romantic version has inextricably merged with the image of Arkady Gaidar. The pseudonym “Gaidar” meaning “Horseman galloping ahead” has entered the consciousness of many generations. This happened probably because symbolic meaning pseudonym accurately reflected not only personal and creative biography writer, but also the place and role of the artist in literary development.

HISTORY OF THE LITERARY NAME

BOOKSHELF POSTER

FILWORD "15 NAMES AND SURNAMES OF HEROES OF THE STORY TIMUR AND HIS TEAM"

Virtual album “The Horseman Galloping Ahead.” Archive - 14.9 MB. A virtual book with turning pages will help the librarian hold an interesting conversation about Gaidar for readers. The album is made up of photographs of Gaidar and his family from different years, as well as photographs of monuments to the writer. The album was designed by Galushko N.V.

ELECTRONIC MATERIALS FOR MASS EVENTS

Among the letters, find 15 names, surnames and nicknames of the characters in the story “Timur and his team.”

Hints can be found in the electronic version of the game (see in the "Computer Games" section)

"15 names and surnames of the heroes of the story "Timur and his team": flash word. Archive - 412 kb. To play you need a program that reads flash files. In the archive there are instructions for the game. DOWN-LOAD A GAME.

Click on the answer grid to read the correct answers

NOTE:
When creating a page (poems and educational materials) the following was used Toolkit:
Arkady Petrovich Gaidar, 1904-1941: to the 100th anniversary of his birth. Vol. 1 / Author: M. S. Andreeva, M. P. Korotkova. - M.: School Library, 2004. - 22 p. : 10 sec. ill. - (Exhibition in the school library).

IN OUR LIBRARY: "A DAY WITH GAYDAR"

Our library dedicated the 110th anniversary of A.P. Gaidar has a whole series of events - a book exhibition, watching cartoons, loud readings of the writer's fairy tales, a drawing competition, a computer game library.January 22 was held under the motto “A Day with Gaidar,” during which young readers became acquainted with the work of this wonderful writer. For 4th grade students of school No. 1 and 3rd grade of school No. 44, a competition program was held based on the story “Timur and his team.” First, the guys got acquainted with the writer’s biography, and then took part in various competitions for knowledge of the text of the work - they put together the “Heroes of the Story” lotto, guessed an event from a picture, determined who owned this or that item, and answered computer quiz questions. Award - diploma “Experts of the works of A.P. Gaidar”, received the team that scored b O higher number of points. The guys were pleased with the event and took other books by Gaidar with them to read them at home.

Arkady Golikov (Gaidar) - children's writer, participant in the bloody Civil War and punisher of the anti-Soviet underground. Golikov is one of the most contradictory personalities V Soviet history. Who is he: a brutal killer of civilians, an inveterate alcoholic, or a talented children's writer?

Childhood

Arkady Petrovich was born on January 9 (22), 1904 in the town of Lgov, in the Kursk province. On his mother’s side, the writer was a hereditary nobleman (moreover, his mother Natalya was related to him), on his father’s side he was the grandson of a serf.

Arkady Gaidar with his parents and sisters

Later the family moved to the city of Arzamas. Arkady was the first-born, and in his new place he had three sisters - Natasha, Katya and Olya. Researchers claim that talent awoke in the writer as early as early years: he learned to compose and speak in rhyme before he learned to write and count.

At the age of 10, the boy is sent to the Arzamas real school. Here the young schoolboy attempted to escape to the front, where his father had previously been taken, but the boy was returned home under escort. While studying at the school, Arkady amazed his teachers with his excellent memory - he memorized entire books and textbook texts.

Military career

After the fall royal family Many parties and student committees appeared in Arzamas. In the summer of 1917, Golikov received the position of delivery boy, and in 1918 he joined the Bolshevik squad. Initially, the Bolsheviks took the young man into the RCP (b) as a candidate, and 15-year-old Golikov became a full member of the party on December 15, 1918. At first he served as an adjutant, later he headed the railway security department.

The young man constantly asked to go to the front, but the commander insisted that the guy first undergo specialized training. And so it happened - Golikov went to the Moscow command courses of the Red Army. Later the institution moved to Ukraine, to Kyiv. Once in Kyiv, Arkady fought with the Petliurists and Ukrainian rebels.

In 1919, Golikov became a commander, and in 1920, a commissar of headquarters. At the age of 17, he knew more about military affairs than many commanders. In 1921 he received the rank of regimental squad commander. Golikov fought on different fronts (in Sochi, on the Don, on the Caucasus front), where he suffered from typhus, was wounded and shell-shocked twice. In 1922, he was sent to suppress the anti-Soviet uprising in Khakassia. Here the young commander showed himself to be a bloodthirsty tyrant, who disliked Jews and shot the population on suspicion of banditry.

According to historians, Gaidar pushed women and children off cliffs and killed anyone he suspected of anti-Soviet activity. In 1922, he was accused of abuse of power. Gaidar was stripped of his position and expelled from the party, and was sent for a psychiatric examination. The case ended with a diagnosis of “traumatic neurosis.”

Creation

Arkady Petrovich returned from the front as an inveterate alcoholic with a fairly damaged psyche.

“From the ship to the ball” - this is how historians characterize Golikov’s literary activity, which began immediately after graduation military career. Arkady took his first manuscript, “In the Days of Defeats and Victories,” and brought it to the popular Leningrad almanac “Kovsh.” With the words: “I am Arkady Golikov, and this is my novel and I ask you to publish it,” the writer handed over several covered notebooks to the editor. And the work was published.

Then the writer moved to Perm, where his first work was published in the magazine “Zvezda” under the pseudonym Gaidar (“Corner House”).

In subsequent years, he published essays and feuilletons. In between nervous breakdowns and travel, he writes his best books: “RVS”, “School” and “Fourth dugout”. Several times Arkady Petrovich is taken away by doctors with bouts of delirium tremens, and later he was arrested for shooting while drunk.

This is followed by several suicide attempts - the writer tries to cut his wrists. Boris Zaks, a fellow journalist, claimed that his hands were covered with large scars, and Arkady cut his veins more than once. In 1932, Golikov was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he wrote “Military Secret.” In total, according to Gaidar himself, he was in psychiatric hospitals 8-10 times.

In 1938 to children's writer all-Union glory came - the country was reading books and collections of his stories with might and main, memorizing “Timur and his team”, “Chuk and Gek” by heart. The writer took his son Timur and adopted daughter Zhenya to Crimea and forgot about psychological problems for a while.

In March 1941, Arkady Petrovich, while relaxing in the Sokolniki sanatorium, met Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. When the war began, Gaidar had just received an order to write a film script based on the work “Timur and His Team.” The script was completed within 12 days, after which Arkady wrote a statement to the front.

Personal life

The writer was married three times during his life:

The writer's first wife was Maria Nikolaevna Plaksina, a 17-year-old nurse. The writer himself was 17 years old at the time of his marriage. The first wife gave Gaidar a son, Zhenya, but the first-born died in infancy.

Golikov’s second wife was 17-year-old Liya Lazarevna Solomyanskaya, a supporter of the pioneer movement and organizer of the newspaper “Miracle Ant”. In 1926, the couple had a son, Timur. However, it was difficult to live with the writer; he drank alcohol and suffered from mental disorders. In 1931, his wife Leah took her son and left her husband for Samson Glyazer (journalist " Komsomolskaya Pravda»).

For the third time, the writer tied the knot with Dora Chernysheva. This happened in 1938. Being an elderly woman, Dora already had a daughter, Evgenia, whom Arkady later adopted.

Last years and death

Despite the prohibitions, the writer still arrived at the front. He arrived in Kyiv. Acted as a correspondent and helped with advice. Later he found himself behind German lines, and then became a member of a partisan detachment.

Having gone on reconnaissance in 1941, the writer, along with several partisans, found himself in an ambush near a railway embankment on October 26. Having discovered the enemy, Gaidar managed to warn his own, shouting: “Guys, Germans!” This phrase saved the lives of the remaining partisans, but led to the death of Arkady Petrovich.

However, there is another version of events, according to which the writer did not die on October 26. Ukrainian journalist Viktor Glushchenko, after conducting his own investigation, learned that Gaidar and several partisans were sheltered by a woman, Kristina Kuzmenko. Having lived with Christina until spring, the warriors moved towards the front, but were captured. Later the partisans managed to escape. They hid in the forest, and a certain Ulyana Dobrenko brought them food. This data turned out to be insufficient to revise the story of Gaidar’s death. Another fact is also doubtful - the body of the murdered man was wearing an officer’s uniform and woolen underwear, which in no way fits with the story about the partisans.

Today, dozens of streets are named after Arkady Gaidar, his image is used in music and literature, and in Khabarovsk there is a memorial to the writer.

Curious facts

More than 70 years have passed since the death of the writer. However, researchers are still arguing about its life history.

Interesting facts about Arkady Gaidar:

• The writer joined the ranks of the Red Army at the age of 15.
• Historian Andrei Burovsky gives an alternative version of Golikov’s enrollment in the Red Army. In his opinion, Arkady’s mother enlisted in the army to save him from retribution for the murder (or murders) that her son committed. Gaidar, during fits of madness, once admitted that he had committed murder in his youth: “I dreamed about the people I killed in childhood...”

• The history of the writer’s pseudonym is also interesting. According to one version, “Gaidar” is translated from Turkic as “messenger”, “advanced horseman”. Another source claims that the pseudonym comes from the phrase “Golikov Arkady from Arzamas.” The third version reports that the pseudonym originates from the Khakass word “Haidar”, which means “where”. During the service in Khakassia, locals shouted: “Haidar-Golik is coming!”
• There is an opinion that it is not Arkady Gaidar who lies behind the gravestone in Kanev (a city in the Cherkasy region). In particular, several years after burial, the slab cracked. It was replaced with a new one, but it was also cracked.

• There is a version that Timur (the son of Leah Solomyanskaya) is not the writer’s own son, but an adopted son. The writer first saw Timur only at the age of two, and at the time of his alleged conception (April 1926) Gaidar was in Central Asia. Thus, it is possible that the writer has no blood descendants.

Bibliography

The most famous works Golikova:

• "The Blue Cup" (1936);
• "Timur and his team" (1940),
• "Drummer's Fate" (1938),
• "School" (1930);
• "RVS" (1925);
• "The fourth dugout."

During his lifetime, Arkady Petrovich Gaidar became a legend Soviet era: at the age of fourteen he entered 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 took part in the revolutionary events of 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.

Red Army soldier Golikov successfully served first as an adjutant, then as head of the communications team, but he 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, wounded, 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

With the command of the regiment, a new stage in the life of Arkady Gaidar began, perhaps the most controversial. According to some biographers, during this period Golikov showed himself to be a decisive, talented commander who defended his conquests 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 (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, 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 Khakasses, 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 military power failed to establish relations with local Soviets and with 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 the execution of the former commander of the 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 had a bad fall 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 at 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 settled”: he worked in Perm as the deputy executive editor of the newspaper of the district committee of the party “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 the civil war “Corner House” with it.

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 knocked out bandits from one village in Khakassia. I'm driving slowly down the street when suddenly he runs up old woman, strokes the horse and says to me in his own language: “Gaydar! 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. 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 in Klin - for all his biographers - “ a military secret" 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 issues with continuation 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 in 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 his 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 (9), 1904 - October 26, 1941; real name Arkady Petrovich Golikov) - Soviet children's writer.

Born in the city of Lgov, Kursk province, in the family of a teacher. He spent his childhood in Arzamas.

First world war father was taken to the front. Arkady, then just a boy, tried to get to the war. The attempt failed, he was detained and returned home.

At the age of 14 he joined the Red Army. Graduated from the Kyiv Infantry Courses. He fought on the Petliura, Polish, and Crimean fronts. He was a platoon commander (at the age of 15), a company commander (at the age of 16). In February 1921, Arkady graduated from the Vystrel Higher Rifle School. After graduation, he first commanded the 23rd reserve regiment, and from June 1921 - the 58th separate anti-banditry regiment (Arkady was 17 years old at that time). The Antonovites themselves, with whom Golikov fought, noted his high moral qualities. After the liquidation of “Antonovism,” Golikov served in Bashkiria, and then in Khakassia, where he searched for Solovyov’s gang. He served in the ranks of the CHON (Special Purpose Units) of Siberia. There are rumors about Golikov’s inhuman cruelty, that he allegedly personally shot the population of entire villages (women and children) on suspicion of hiding Solovyov, and in the winter, saving ammunition, he drowned those suspected of conspiring with Solovyov’s gang in lakes Bolshoye and Chernoye (Republic of Khakassia ) dozens of people. There is no documentary evidence of these atrocities. In 1924, he retired from the army due to shell shock received on the fronts of the Civil War.

The author's mentors in the literary field were M. Slonimsky, K. Fedin, S. Semenov. Gaidar began publishing in 1925. The work "R.V.S." turned out to be significant. The writer became a true classic of children's literature, becoming famous for his works about military camaraderie and sincere friendship.

The literary pseudonym "Gaidar" stands for "Golikov Arkady D" ARzamas" (in imitation of the name D" Artagnan from " Three Musketeers"Dumas).

The most famous works of Arkady Gaidar: "P.B.C." (1925), “Distant Countries”, “The Fourth Dugout”, “School” (1930), “Timur and His Team” (1940), “Chuk and Gek”, “The Fate of the Drummer”, stories “Hot Stone”, “Blue cup"… The writer's works were included in school curriculum, have been actively filmed and translated into many languages ​​of the world. The work “Timur and His Team” actually marked the beginning of a unique Timur movement, which aimed at voluntary assistance to veterans and elderly people on the part of the pioneers.

During the Great Patriotic War Gaidar was in the active army, as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda. He was a witness and participant in the Kyiv defensive operation of the Southwestern Front. He wrote military essays “At the crossing”, “The bridge”, “At the front line”, “Rockets and grenades”. After the encirclement of the Southwestern Front near Kiev, in September 1941, Arkady Petrovich ended up in Gorelov’s partisan detachment. He was a machine gunner in the detachment. On October 26, 1941, near the village of Lyaplyavaya in Ukraine, Arkady Gaidar died in battle with the Germans, warning members of his squad about the danger. Buried in Kanev

In the mid-1920s, Arkady married a 17-year-old Komsomol member from Penza, Ruvelia Lazarevna Solomyanskaya. In 1926, their son Timur was born in Arkhangelsk. After 5 years, his wife and son left him for another man.

Gaidar's second marriage took place in the mid-1930s. He adopted Zhenya, the daughter of his second wife Dora Mikhailovna.

In Soviet times, Gaidar's books were one of the main means of educating the younger generation. The educational authorities of the USSR set the heroes of his novels and short stories as examples for Soviet children. The groups of children organized by Soviet schools to help the elderly were called “Timurovskys,” and their participants were called “Timurovtsy,” in honor of the main character of Gaidar’s story “Timur and His Team.”

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Timurov's teams and detachments operated in schools, orphanages, at palaces and houses of pioneers and other non-school institutions, at places of residence; in the RSFSR alone there were over 2 million Timurites. They patronized hospitals, families of soldiers and officers of the Soviet Army, orphanages and gardens, helped harvest crops, worked for the defense fund; in the post-war period they provided assistance to the disabled, war and labor veterans, and the elderly; looked after the graves of fallen soldiers.

In the 60s Timurov's search work to study Gaidar's life greatly contributed to the discovery memorial museums writer in Arzamas, Lgov. With funds raised by Timur members, a library-museum them. Gaidar. In the early 70s Timur's All-Union Headquarters was created under the editorship of the Pioneer magazine.

The traditions of the Timur movement found their expression and development in the voluntary participation of children and adolescents in the improvement of cities and villages, nature conservation, and assistance labor collectives adults, etc.

Timurov teams and detachments were created in the pioneer organizations of the GDR, People's Republic of Belarus, Poland, Vietnam, Czechoslovakia.

Gaidar's name was given to many schools, streets of cities and villages of the USSR. The monument to the hero of Gaidar’s story Malchish-Kibalchish is the first monument in the capital literary character(sculptor V.K. Frolov, architect V.S. Kubasov) - installed in 1972 near the City Palace of Children and Youth Creativity on the Sparrow Hills (in Soviet times - the Palace of Pioneers and Schoolchildren on the Lenin Hills).