Famous writers who never existed

Text: Mikhail Vizel/GodLiteratury.RF
Photo: Rene Magritte “Son of Man”

Traditionally April 1 It is customary to give comic news about events that did not happen and invented sensations. We decided to remind you of the five most famous Russian writers who never actually existed.

1. Ivan Petrovich Belkin

The first and most significant Russian “virtual author”, who emerged in the fall of 1830 under the pen of Pushkin. It's not just a nickname; By writing “Belkin’s Tale,” Pushkin tried to get away from himself, a famous lyric poet and the darling of secular salons, who was also under the personal censorship of the tsar himself. And write strictly realistic stories on behalf of a modest provincial debutant, a retired army lieutenant - for whom he came up with a biography and even completed it by declaring poor Ivan Petrovich dead. However, he himself did not keep the secret very strictly. On the contrary, he instructed Pletnev, who was engaged in publishing stories, how to deal with booksellers: “Whisper my name to Smirdin, so that he whispers to the buyers.”

2. Kozma Prutkov

If Ivan Petrovich Belkin is the most “significant” of Russian virtual authors, then the “director of the Assay Office” is the most famous author. And, perhaps, the most prolific. Which is not surprising, given that not one, but four people wrote “on his behalf” in the 50s and 60s of the 19th century - Count Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy and his cousins, the three Zhemchuzhnikov brothers. “Wise thoughts” of Kozma Prutkov have become sayings: “You cannot embrace the immensity,” “If you read the inscription on an elephant’s cage: buffalo, don’t believe your eyes,” and we often forget that they were written as a mockery, in modern terms - banter . It is no coincidence that Kozma Prutkov, like another similar “piit” - Captain Lebyadkin from Dostoevsky’s “Demons”, is considered a predecessor of the poetry of the absurd and conceptualism.

3. Cherubina De Gabriac

The most romantic of virtual authors. It arose in the summer of 1909 as a result of close communication (in Koktebel, freeing from conventions) of the 22-year-old anthroposophical philologist Elizaveta Dmitrieva and the already famous poet and literary figure Maximilian Voloshin. It was he who suggested that the enthusiastic young lady, who studied medieval poetry at the Sorbonne, write poetry not in her own name (which, admittedly, is quite ordinary, like Lisa’s appearance), but in the name of a certain Russian Catholic woman with French roots. And then he actively “promoted” the poems of the mysterious Cherubina in the editorial offices of aesthetic metropolitan magazines, with the employees of which the poetess herself communicated exclusively by phone - thereby driving them crazy. The hoax ended quickly - when Nikolai Gumilev, who met Lisa in Paris a year earlier than Voloshin, considered that he had “stole” her from him and challenged his “rival” to a duel. The famous “second duel on the Chernaya River,” fortunately, ended with minimal damage - Voloshin lost his galosh in the snow, after which Sasha Cherny called him “Vax Kaloshin” in one of his poems. For Dmitrieva herself Short story Cherubina ended in a long creative and personal crisis - in 1911 she married a man who had nothing to do with poetry and went with him to Central Asia.

4.

Soviet times were not very conducive to full-fledged literary hoaxes. Literature was a matter of national importance, and no pranks were inappropriate here. (We must, however, put it in brackets complex issue about the full-voiced Russian versions of the epics of the peoples of the USSR, created by the disgraced intellectuals of the capital.) But since the beginning of the 90s, “virtual authors” have densely filled the book pages. For the most part, they are purely commercial and disposable. But one of them “hatched” and became a well-known brand. It’s strange to remember now, but back in 2000, I carefully kept the secret of my authorship, because I was embarrassed by this activity, writing entertaining retro detective stories, in front of my intellectual friends.

5. Nathan Dubovitsky

The author of the action-packed novel “Near Zero”, which caused a lot of noise in 2009, whose true identity has still not been officially revealed - although indirect “evidence” quite eloquently points to a high-ranking representative of the Russian political establishment. But he is in no hurry to confirm his authorship, and neither will we. It's more fun with virtual authors. And not only April 1.

Regional scientific and practical conference for schoolchildren

Literature Research Paper

Artliterary hoaxes.

Work completed:

student of class 10 "A"

Municipal educational institution "Rudnogorskaya Sosh"

Parilova Ekaterina

and literature

Municipal educational institution "Rudnogorskaya Sosh"

Zheleznogorsk 2013

1. Introduction.

1.1. Hoax - what is it?................................................. 3

1.2. Goal and tasks. ……………………………………. 4

1.3. Hypothesis…………………………………………...4

1.4. Object of study. ……………………………....4

1.5. Subject of study. ……………………………..4

1.6. Research methods. ……………………………...4

2. Main part.

I. Literary hoax as art.

2.1.1. Why is literary hoax still not described as an independent art form?........5

2.1.2. Literary hoax is a synthetic art form. .......6

II. General principles of the art of literary mystification.

2.2.1. Reasons for hoaxes. ………………………7

2.2.2. Special techniques of literary hoax...8

2.2.3. Exposing hoaxes…………………....9

III. Literary Hoaxes Revealed……….9

3. Conclusion.

4. List of used literature.

Introduction.

Hoax - what is it?

In one of the newspapers I read an article dedicated to Ilya Fonyakov’s book “Poets who were not there.” From the article I realized that this book is about literary hoaxes, the existence of which many of us do not even suspect. My previous work in literature was devoted to the Cherubina de Gabriac hoax. And since hoaxes are interesting to me, I decided to continue working on this topic.

It is necessary to clarify what literary hoax is. This is usually the name given to literary works whose authorship is deliberately attributed to a person, real or fictitious, or is presented as folk art. At the same time, literary hoax seeks to preserve the stylistic style of the author, to recreate - or create from scratch - his creative image. Hoaxes can be carried out for completely different purposes: for the sake of profit, to shame critics or in the interests of literary struggle, from the author’s lack of confidence in his abilities or for certain ethical reasons. The main difference between a hoax and, for example, a pseudonym is the fundamental self-delimitation of the real author from his own work.

Mystification has always been, to one degree or another, characteristic of literature. Strictly speaking, what is a literary work if not an attempt to convince someone - a reader, a critic, oneself - of the existence of a reality invented by the writer? Therefore, it is not surprising that not only worlds invented by someone have appeared, but also fake works and invented writers. Everyone who was guided by the desire to attribute to the author a work that was not written by him stopped at creating the work and putting on it not their own names, but the name of the mentioned author. Others did not attempt to publish poems under their own name, but always signed their names fictional characters. Still others called their poems “translations” from foreign authors. Some authors went further, becoming “foreigners” writing in Russian. I wanted to learn more about the art of literary hoaxes, I went to the library, but did not find detailed material. Then I went online and found little-known and even unique publications, on the basis of which I wrote my scientific work.

Purpose my job is to identify the general patterns of the art of literary hoax

Tasks:

1. Find out as much information as possible about literary hoaxes.

2. Reveal the features of the art of literary hoaxes.

3. Describe the features of the art of literary hoaxes.

4. Prove that literary hoax is a synthetic art form.

5. Identify as many reasons as possible for the appearance of literary hoaxes.

6. Establish how a hoax is exposed.

7. Find as many literary hoaxes as possible.

8. Systematize the collected material.

Research hypothesis: The art of literary hoaxes is a synthetic art that has existed for a very long time and has its own laws and canons.

Object of study: Literary hoaxes.

Subject of study: Literary hoaxes as art.

Research methods:

1. Complex analysis - consideration of an object from different points of view.

2. Imperial method - collection of data and information about the subject of research.

3. Data processing method.

4. The induction method is a method in which a general conclusion is built on the basis of partial premises

5. Generalization method - a method in which general properties subject.

Main part.

I.Literary hoax as art.

Why is literary hoax still not described as an independent art form?

“Literary hoaxes have been around as long as literature itself.” Almost every article about literary hoaxes begins with this phrase, and it is impossible to disagree with it. As soon as books began to be published, writers appeared who wanted to play pranks on their contemporaries, and more often, on their descendants. There seems to be some kind of attractive force in “fooling” as many people as possible at the same time. “Reader, ... laugh: the height of earthly joys is to laugh at everyone from around the corner,” Pushkin wrote frankly. Of course, the reasons that pushed writers to commit hoaxes were, as a rule, more serious and deeper, but the love of humor cannot be discounted.

And here the question involuntarily comes to mind: why is literary mystification, having existed for thousands of years, still not described as an independent form of art (after all, for example, the art of war has been described - and quite thoroughly - which, like the art of mystification, is largely relies on intuition)? Most articles only tell the stories of one or another long-solved literary hoax; at best, they propose a classification based on who the literary work is attributed to: a writer, a historical figure, or a fictional author. Meanwhile, literary hoaxes have their own general limitations and special possibilities, their own rules and their own techniques - their own laws of the genre. Suffice it to say that in a literary hoax the work of art itself becomes an enlarged sign with which the hoaxer operates in life - in the game, and the general opinion about this work of art is the same subject of the game as the work itself. In other words, in the “table of ranks” of this game, literary hoax is higher than work of art. And this game has its own masters and losers, its own masters and even geniuses. Of course, literature is not the only art form that has misled many people; There have been hoaxers in painting and music, in archeology and cinema, and even in science. But my interests are primarily related to literature.

Literary hoax is a synthetic art form.

Is literary hoax a synthetic art form? First you need to find out what a synthetic art form is. Synthetic arts are such types artistic creativity, which represent an organic fusion or a relatively free combination of different types of art, forming a qualitatively new and unified aesthetic whole. In fact, if in order to write a significant literary work, talent and a pen (quill pen, pencil, typewriter, computer keyboard) are enough, then the hoaxer must also have the ability to mislead a large number of people outside the very process of creating a literary work . If a writer masters the art of playing in the Word, then the hoaxer must also possess the art of playing in Life, since literary hoax is a collective game played simultaneously in both life and literature. Moreover, not only those who take the hoax offered by him at face value, but also those who are “on the side” of the hoaxer, initiated into the hoax, involuntarily take part in the game. There may be few of them, one or two people, or, as in Shakespeare’s hoax, dozens, but, with rare exceptions, they
always take place.

Thus, in Pushkin’s hoax with the fairy tale “The Little Humpbacked Horse” direct participation accepted, who not only brought 18-year-old Ershov to Pushkin, but also explained to the student that Pushkin, they say, does not want to put his name under “The Little Hunchback” because of the unfriendly attitude of literary criticism towards the very genre of the literary fairy tale, which in fact took place .

Moreover, hoaxers can play tricks even on those initiated into the hoax. Pletnev was deceived by Pushkin: he saw the powerful political subtext of “The Little Humpbacked Horse.” “The Sovereign Whale,” which blocked the “Sea-Okiyan,” obviously reminded of Russia’s role in Europe, and the “thirty ships,” which he swallowed 10 years ago and is not releasing, clearly meant the Decembrists. Pletnev would never have taken part in this matter of bypassing the tsarist censorship, since he was a coward. Indeed, in this fairy tale, Pushkin went farther than ever, publicly declaring through the “mouths” of a hunchbacked horse that this “sovereign” state is doomed until the Decembrists are released: “If he gives them freedom, God will remove the misfortune from him.” Probably, together with Pushkin’s closest friends, there would not have been even a dozen who learned about his authorship of the fairy tale, and all subsequent generations of Russian readers, right up to our time, turned out to be misled, in addition to other contemporaries, counting in the hundreds of millions.

II.General principles of the art of literary mystification.

Reasons for hoaxes:

The reasons for hoaxes are as diverse as life itself.

2. Hoaxes made by young writers in order to quickly become famous, for example, Prosper Merimee, who staged hoaxes with “Guzla and the Clara Gazul Theater.”

3. Many hoaxers were driven by political or ideological considerations, for example, the reason for hiding the names of the true authors who wrote under the pseudonym “Shakespeare” was concern for state security, since the members of the pseudonym were the secret children of Queen Elizabeth.

4.Literary mystification is often used as a means of literary struggle to expose and ridicule literary opponents. For example, a group of writers - the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers and others - in the 60s of the 19th century. published the works of Kozma Prutkov, a stupid, narcissistic official they invented, allegedly writing pompous and funny poems and aphorisms claiming special profundity. In the pompous work of Kozma Prutkov, it was easy to discern ridicule of adherents of the antisocial theory of “art for art’s sake” and parodies of the literary works of some modern writers.

5. One of the main reasons hoaxes most often there were turning points for literature and social thought of the era. In 1817-23, to support the idea of national revival, under the guise of a folk epic, the “Kraledvor Manuscript” and “Libushin Court”, lists that were allegedly discovered by the philologist V. Ganka, were published.

6. Reason to take literature out of the narrow channel of traditional motifs and forms

7. Personal motives. For example, one of the reasons that pushed Pushkin to immediately publish “The Little Hunchback” and to give away his best fairy tale for centuries was an attempt to force the Tsar to leave Natalya Nikolaevna alone, whom he openly courted: it was a warning shot. As soon as Pushkin realized that the fairy tale under the name of Ershov went unnoticed and his “personal warning” did not reach the addressee. He writes another fairy tale - “About the Golden Cockerel”, neutral from a political point of view, but with hints: about a girl who “is not afraid to know sin”, and about a king who desires to marry a young girl, as in “The Little Hunchback ", it backfired.

8. Finally, last but not least, is the reason for basic profit. There are so many examples that they need not be cited.

Special techniques of literary hoax

The study of literary hoaxes requires a special approach, not only due to the lack of documentary evidence, but also because hoaxers also use special, non-generally accepted literary - and not only - techniques; Here are the most used:

1. By publishing hoax works under a pseudonym, they can substitute the authorship of an existing, living person - be it the semi-literate moneylender Shakespeare, the 18-year-old student Ershov or the 17-year-old youth Rimbaud - which at first misleads readers, but over time becomes one of clues to unravel the hoax.

2. One of the common methods of hoaxing is changing the date of writing of the work; So Pushkin put “reference” dates under some poems, and changing the date of Chester’s collection delayed for a long time its solution as dedicated to the death of the true Shakespeare.

3. Hoaxers often use wordplay as a hoax technique, playing with ambiguities both in a literary work that mystifies the public and in life. This is especially true for Shakespeare and Pushkin.

4. Hoaxers often use the transfer of the role of narrator to the characters of their works, and thereby radically change their meaning, which turns out to be understood only many years later.

5. Hoaxers often use all kinds of ciphers; To one degree or another, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Pushkin resorted to various types of encryption in their texts.

6. Finally, hoaxers use all sorts of tricks to support the hoax in life; Pushkin staged such a mystifying game around Eugene Onegin. But the hoax around Shakespeare’s pseudonym was especially powerful, in which, in addition to Stratfordian William Shakspere, dozens of poets and playwrights of the Elizabethan era took part - which led to the fact that this hoax has still not been fully resolved.

Unmasking hoaxes.

If the hoax is done skillfully, then its exposure presents enormous difficulties and, as a rule, if the hoaxer himself does not confess, then this happens purely by accident. Since history tends to forget its hoaxes, exposure becomes increasingly difficult as time passes. Therefore, there is no doubt that many hoaxes still remain unexposed. In this regard, information about the circumstances of the disclosure of certain hoaxes is of particular interest. Opening l literary hoax produced by means of textual criticism of the text. Social genesis and bias in l literary hoax expressed, as a rule, more frankly than in ordinary works; often give out anachronisms, linguistic inconsistencies, etc. Mn. l iterative hoaxes are not only of historical interest, but also of aesthetic value.

III.Literary hoaxes revealed.

Conclusion.

James ARKWRIGHT (Gennady Fish)

The leader of the Leningrad Bolsheviks, Sergei Mironovich Kirov, mentioned him in one of his speeches and wished to get to know the author better. Editor of the Stroika magazine, where as Since the next publication was being prepared, I turned to the writer Gennady Fish, in whose translations Arkwright’s works were published. And after some confusion, he admitted that there was no Arkwright in nature, that he was born “at the tip of the pen” of Gennady Fish himself, and the photograph was “American.” was taken from the pre-revolutionary “Niva”... The editor grabbed his head: having learned about the prank, “Mironych” could have been angry - the people's solidarity of the working people is not a reason for jokes. But Kirov reasoned differently: whether Arkwright exists or not - it is important that he works. on us! And the book “Arkwright’s Notebook” was published in 1933. This story was told in his book “The Path of Conscience” by the old St. Petersburg critic Anatoly Gorelov, in the past the same editor of that very magazine “Stroyka”...
Despite all the fantastic nature, Arkwright’s story is not without a basis in reality. “Class brothers” from Western countries really came in the twenties and thirties to help build the world’s first socialist country. In Siberia, in Kuzbass, an entire American Industrial Colony (AIC) was created. The fate of its leaders turned out to be tragic: they were repressed. James Arkwright, as a fictitious person, escaped this fate. And today we reread his poems with special feeling.

Irina DONSKAYA

(Andrey Shiroglazov)

The book of poems by Irina Donskaya, published in 2001 by the Vologda publishing house “Palisad” in a circulation of 150 copies, is one of the brightest and most mysterious poetic hoaxes of recent years. Although, it would seem, what is mysterious here? On the very first page of the “personal author’s copy” sent to me, even before the “title”, it is printed in black and white: “Andrei Gennadievich Shiroglazov (literary pseudonym Irina Donskaya).” So, strictly speaking, there is no hoax: all the cards are revealed at once. But there are also poems. And in poetry - biography, fate, character (purely feminine and purely modern). N. Demyankova, a student of the Faculty of Journalism at the Ural University, writes very precisely about this in the preface (a real person or also a mask?), contrasting, among other things, the Cherepovets poetic school with the “official Vologda” - the regional center. It is in Cherepovets (referred to, by the way, in the text of the preface as “northern Athens”) that Irina Donskaya “lives”. However, quotation marks for the verb “lives” are perhaps unnecessary. He just lives. Because, despite everything, you believe in its existence.

Cherubina de Gabriak (Elizaveta Ivanovna Dmitrieva, marriedVasiliev).

Born into a poor noble family; father is a penmanship teacher, mother is a midwife. Her father died early from tuberculosis, and E. Dmitrieva suffered from the same disease in childhood, leaving her lame for the rest of her life. After graduating from the Vasileostrovskaya gymnasium, she studied at the St. Petersburg Women's College pedagogical institute(studied medieval history and French literature), attended lectures at St. Petersburg University and the Sorbonne. She taught history at the gymnasium and did translations from Spanish. She wrote mystical poems, but was not published. In the summer of 1909 in the Crimea, her friend M. Voloshin advised her to send poems to the newly opened Apollo magazine under a magnificent pseudonym (which they came up with together). He contributed to the spread of rumors about a mysterious Spanish beauty from a noble family - Cherubina de Gabriac. The entire editorial staff of Apollo was intrigued by the beautiful reclusive poetess; editor S. Makovsky, who had fallen in love with Cherubina in absentia, published her poems in two large cycles.

The hoax was roughly exposed by N. Gumilyov and translator I. von Ponter, also an employee of the magazine. Defending the honor of the poetess, M. Voloshin challenged N. Gumilev to a duel; E. Dmitrieva perceived everything that happened as a tragedy. She left literature for several years, then began to write poems with a different sound - mystical-anthroposophical ones, but little was published

(I never used Cherubina’s pseudonym again).

“When the snow falls!..” - you said and touched it anxiously
My lips, muffling the words with a kiss.
This means that happiness is not a dream. It's here. It will be possible.
When it snows.
When it snows! In the meantime, let in the languid gaze
He'll hide. The unnecessary impulse will be silenced!
My favorite! Everything will be pearl-shiny,
When it snows.
When the snow falls and seems to sink lower
Blue edges of blue clouds, -
And I will become, perhaps, both dearer and closer to you,
When the snow falls...

https://pandia.ru/text/78/143/images/image008_0.png" alt="Romain" align="left" width="250" height="349 src=">С начала 1960-х годов в русскоязычных зарубежных изданиях стали появляться произведения, подписанные неким Абрамом Терцем. Одной из самых известных стала повесть «Любимов» - о маленьком советском городке, в котором велосипедный мастер захватил власть, стал диктатором и начал строить настоящий коммунизм. Тот же автор опубликовал ироническую и едкую статью о социалистическом реализме. В СССР тексты Терца сочли антисоветскими и порочащими «советский государственный и общественный строй», после чего поисками автора занялся КГБ. Как именно было установлено авторство Синявского, точно неизвестно - возможно, речь идет о чьем-то предательстве или о графологической экспертизе. В 1965–1966 годах состоялся громкий процесс над Андреем Синявским и Юлием Даниэлем (он тоже публиковался на Западе под псевдонимом). И хотя в защиту писателей поступали коллективные письма, как из-за рубежа, так и от многих их советских коллег, тем не менее, суд счел их виновными. Синявский получил семь лет за антисоветскую агитацию и пропаганду. В 1991 году дело было пересмотрено, и приговор отменили. Зато осталось письмо Михаила Шолохова, в котором он называет книги Синявского и Даниэля «грязью из лужи». Публиковаться на Западе, да еще и с текстами, которые в СССР цензура никогда бы не пропустила, под собственным именем было чистым самоубийством. Печатаясь под псевдонимами, авторы пытались обезопасить себя и своих близких. Впрочем, Синявский продолжал публиковать прозу под именем Абрама Терца и после освобождения из лагеря и отъезда в эмиграцию. По версии, озвученной его женой Марией Розановой уже после смерти писателя, псевдоним был взят в честь героя одесской блатной песенки - вора-карманника. Этим Синявский как бы признавал, что ведет !} dangerous game. And having become famous under this name, he no longer wanted to give it up: the fictional writer’s biography turned out to be more glorious and exciting than that of the real one.

Max Fry Russian writer and artist Svetlana Martynchik.

Since 1996, the St. Petersburg publishing house "Azbuka" began publishing books by the writer Max Frei. Genre: fantasy with elements of parody. The novels gradually gained popularity, and by 2001 Max Fry had become one of the most published Russian science fiction writers. Eventually, the author's popularity grew to such an extent that it became necessary to present it to the public: Fry became a real star. Max Fry is not listed among foreign authors; for Russia such a first and last name is atypical - that means it is a pseudonym, everyone decided. The publisher joked that Max Fry was a blue-eyed black man. This continued until the fall of 2001, when on Dmitry Dibrov’s television program the host introduced Svetlana Martynchik to the audience as the real author of Max Frei’s books. And then a scandal broke out: Martynchik accused ABC of trying to register “Max Fry” as a trademark and get literary blacks to write for her. In the 1990s, against the backdrop of the flow of foreign science fiction pouring into the domestic market, Russian authors became somewhat lost. As a result, books of domestic origin began to appear, but under foreign names. Dmitry Gromov and Oleg Ladyzhensky wrote on behalf of Henry Lyon Oldie, and Elena Khaetskaya became Madeline Simons. For the same reason, the pseudonym “Max Fry” was born. By the way, Fry’s books always bear the copyright of Martynchik herself. In fact, we are talking about a publishing, not a writer's, hoax: the figure of the author is carefully mythologized, and at the moment the pseudonym is revealed, if the author is still popular by that time, you can make good money.

Misha Defonseca a American-Belgian writer Monique de Vel.

Autobiography" href="/text/category/avtobiografiya/" rel="bookmark">autobiographical: Misha tells how at the very beginning of the war she, then a very little girl, lived in Belgium. Her Jewish parents were deported by the Germans and sent to a concentration camp , she herself managed to escape, after which she wandered around Europe throughout the war, spent the night in the forests, ate what she could get, and for a long time generally lived with wolves, like Mowgli. The book was not successful in the USA, but in Europe the text quickly became popular. bestseller. In France, by 2005, it was one of the twenty best-selling books in the non-fiction genre. The author himself was never hiding: the subject of the hoax was not the writer, but the physical embodiment of Misha Defonseca, who existed and gave interviews. the public had questions about the story itself. One of those who believed that Defonseca’s book was a fake was the Frenchman Serge Arol, the author of several works on the relationship between people and wolves. Gradually, inconsistencies between the events described in the book and the real ones began to emerge. historical facts: For example, the deportation of Jews did not take place at the time indicated by Defonseca. But Defonseca's opponents invariably received accusations of anti-Semitism. At the same time, a conflict developed between the American publisher and Defonseca - they were suing over the terms of the contract. Then the journalists rummaged through the archives and discovered that the writer was not Jewish at all, but Belgian, Monique de Vel, and Defonseca was her husband’s last name. Monique's father was actually a Gestapo agent, thanks to whom the Germans were able to defeat a group of Belgian underground fighters. Finally, in February 2008, Defonseca admitted that her text was not a memoir, but fiction. The book caused quite a heated scandal in Belgium: Jewish organizations that had long defended Defonseca were shocked after her final exposure. The writer herself justified herself by saying that the fictional life of a girl named Misha was so close to her that she herself no longer knew what her childhood was really like. After all, she really grew up without parents. It’s not clear what it was - a cunning fraud or a split personality. Perhaps both at the same time. It is interesting that in Russia the book was published in 2009, that is, after the author was exposed, but it was positioned as true memoirs Jewish girl. “This book, this story, is really about me. This is not what happened in reality, but this is my reality.” (From an interview with Monique de Vel)

Boris , Japanese translator and writer.

In 1998, the detective novel “Azazel” was published about the adventures of the young St. Petersburg detective Erast Fandorin. The author is listed on the cover - Boris Akunin. The genre - “intelligent historical detective story” - turned out to be in demand, although not immediately. At the beginning of the 2000s, Akunin's books became bestsellers, and conversations began about film adaptations, which meant much more money for the author than just royalties for novels. As Akunin's books became more popular and their audience wider, a variety of assumptions were put forward, including that the author was actually Vladimir Zhirinovsky or Tatyana Tolstaya. However, already in 2000 it became known that under this pseudonym was hiding a Japanese translator, deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine “Foreign Literature” Grigory Chkhartishvili. He himself admitted this, giving several interviews and beginning to appear in public not only as Chkhartishvili, but also as Akunin. All 1990s writing popular books“low genre”, that is, detective stories and thrillers, was considered an activity unworthy of an intelligent person: the author should not be smarter than his works. In addition, as the writer himself admitted in an interview, commodity experts named Chkhartishvili bookstores they would never have reprimanded him anyway. And B. Akunin speaks easily, and immediately attunes the high school reader to the classics of the 19th century.

Holm van Zaitchik orientalists and writers Vyacheslav Rybakov and Igor Alimov.

Since 2000, novels by a certain Dutch writer and humanist Holm van Zaichik about a utopian-nice parallel historical reality in which China, the Mongol Empire and Rus' are united into one superpower have been published in Russian. In just six years, seven novels were published under the pseudonym Holm van Zaitchik. The mystery of van Zaitchik was an open secret from the very beginning, although parody interviews were published in the name of the “humanist”. The fact that two St. Petersburg authors were hiding behind this pseudonym, which refers to the name of the Dutchman Robert van Gulik (one of the largest orientalists of the twentieth century, whose works were quite actively published at that time), became known a year later, when they began to receive money for their project. literary awards at science fiction festivals, and then honestly admit in interviews that it is them. The frankly ironic content of the work (a utopia parodying Russian history, and even many characters have real prototypes among friends and acquaintances of the authors) encouraged the co-authors to continue the game. At the same time, the serious science fiction writer Rybakov and the serious historian Alimov would look bad as authors on the cover of such a book. But the openly bantering van Zaychik is very good. At the turn of the millennium, literature gravitated towards dystopias, no one wrote utopias, and additional literary play was required to justify positive prose.

Nathan Dubovitsky r Russian statesman Vladislav Surkov.

In 2009, the novel “Near Zero” was published in the supplement to the magazine “Russian Pioneer”. The hitherto unknown Nathan Dubovitsky is stated as the author. The hero of the novel is a cynic who changes professions: he is now a publisher, now a merchant, now a political PR specialist. The novel contains oppositionists, caricatured, whom wise experience main character teaches life: “It’s not power that you hate, but life. Generally. She’s not what you would like.” Based on the novel, Kirill Serebrennikov staged the play “I Killed Grandma” on the Small Stage of the Art Theater. The assumption that the author of the novel was the then deputy head of the presidential administration, Vladislav Surkov, appeared almost immediately. Surkov has published his texts more than once in the Russian Pioneer magazine, he writes articles and stories, and is the author of lyrics for several songs by the Agatha Christie group. The main ideas of the book - that the government is corrupt, but the opposition is no better, and even worse - coincide with the ideas of Surkov himself, which he voiced more than once. Viktor Yerofeyev said in his interview that it was Surkov who was the author of “Okolonol”, referring to a personal conversation with the official. Finally, a commonplace in articles about the novel “Near Zero” has become the idea that the pseudonym may be associated with the surname of Surkov’s wife, Dubovitskaya. It is interesting that at one time Surkov was also named as a possible author of novels written under the pseudonym Anna Borisova. Almost all over the world, current politicians and officials do not publish books under their own names. Especially if they talk about their work in these books. Surkov for our political and public life that same semi-mythical figure of the “author” who “either died or not.” It is he who is considered the fatal eminence grise, which tightened the screws, strangled freedoms, turned elections into a farce, and television into a propaganda machine. This picture of the world is especially popular among residents of large cities with higher education, among the intelligentsia of the 2000s. This category of citizens believes that “Surkov’s propaganda” has no effect on them; it is impossible to seriously speak to this reader on behalf of Vladislav Surkov, the author of the novel about modern life. But Dubovitsky can talk to him in his own language and try to explain that this same reader, with his pathological hatred of power, must be ridiculous even to himself.

Conclusion.

Literary hoaxes are now being studied from different angles; as proof of this phenomenon, one can cite a program on the Culture channel.

Literary hoaxes on the channel "Culture" On the channel "Russia-K" on May 2 the series "Literary hoaxes" will begin. The author of this project is a cultural expert, researcher of various archives in the country and abroad, Ivan Tolstoy. A brilliant storyteller will show and analyze major events artistic sphere, will tell about cultural celebrities through the prism of literary hoaxes. During my research, I came to a paradoxical conclusion: one of the main tasks of literary hoaxes is to hide its cause.

Hoaxes are always directed to the future, which automatically removes the question of the ethical responsibility of the hoaxer. Yes, the hoaxer deceives his contemporaries - or, to put it mildly, misleads them - but they will not know about it, and, therefore, no one becomes an object of ridicule. Laughter is heard only at the moment of the solution, but by this time there are so many people who are mistaken that the individual feeling of deception dissolves into the collective one and only causes a smile: “They played a great joke on us!” But literary scholars, living at the moment of the solution, have to decide what to do with their works, which the hoaxer “framed” in one way or another.

Another conclusion follows from this: hoaxes, as a rule, are intended to solve them - otherwise they are meaningless (a hoax intended only to deceive has no future). That is why hoaxers, destroying any documentary evidence of a hoax, leave ambiguous hints and “clues” for descendants. The better the hoax is organized, the longer it remains unsolved, the more contemporaries and descendants are misled - and the stronger the effect of solving it. In other words, a literary hoax becomes more significant the longer it remains unsolved.

From all that has been said above, it is not difficult to conclude that the subject of a successful literary hoax can only be an outstanding work of art. In fact, only such a work can arouse long-lasting, over decades and centuries, persistent reader interest, which, in fact, leads to a flash of general attention when it is solved. “Hamlet”, “Don Quixote”, “Eugene Onegin”, “The Master and Margarita”, which have been solved most recently, literally before our eyes, are precisely such works. Such a work is Pushkin’s “The Little Humpbacked Horse” - undoubtedly the most beloved Russian poetic fairy tale of our ancestors, us and our children and grandchildren.

It also follows that a literary hoax is considered to have taken place when it is solved.

Bibliography:

1. “Poets that never existed” Ilya Fonyakov.

2. “House in Kolomna” Pushkin A.

3. Article by Vladimir Kozarovetsky “Time to collect stones I”

4. Article by Vladimir Kozarovetsky “Time to collect stones II”

5. “Famous Hoaxes.”

6. Literary encyclopedia 1929-1939.

7. "Literary hoax."

8. Dmitriev his name: From the history of pseudonyms and anonyms / Dmitriev, Valentin Grigorievich, Dmitriev, V.G. - M.: Nauka, 19с

9. “Alexander Pushkin. The Little Humpbacked Horse”, 3rd edition; M., ID KAZAROV, 2011

11. Gililov about William Shakespeare, or the Mystery of the Great Phoenix (2nd edition). M.: Intl. Relationships, 2000.

12. Encyclopedia of pseudonyms of Russian poets.

13. Kozlov falsification: A manual for teachers and university students. 2nd ed. M.: Aspect Press, 1996.

REVIEW

For the research work of Ekaterina Yurievna Parilova, a 10th grade student at the Rudnogorsk Secondary School.

Topic: “The art of literary hoaxes.”

Ekaterina Parilova's work is dedicated to the art of literary hoaxes.

There is no comprehensive survey of literary forgeries in any language. The reason is not difficult to establish: the science of literature is powerless to verify its entire archive. It is powerless because this verification presupposes the presence of primary sources, that is, manuscripts that do not raise doubts about authenticity. But what an immeasurable number of such manuscripts have been lost forever! And, as a result, the history of world literature, knowing about the falsification of many monuments, tries to forget about it.

Purpose of the study: to identify general patterns of the art of literary mystification.

Research objectives: find out as much data as possible about literary hoaxes; reveal the features of the art of literary hoaxes; describe the features of the art of literary hoaxes; prove that literary hoax is a synthetic art form; identify as many reasons as possible for the appearance of literary hoaxes; establish how a hoax is exposed; find as many literary hoaxes as possible; systematize the collected material.

When writing a research paper, the student used the following methods: 1) Complex analysis; 2) Imperial method; 3) Data processing method; 4) Method of induction; 5) Generalization method.

The work provides a justification for the relevance of the topic under study, put forward goals, set tasks, and formulate a hypothesis; the methods, object and subject of the research are determined; a review of the literature on the topic is given. The material in the work is presented in compliance with internal logic; there is a logical relationship between sections. The author's erudition in the area under consideration is traced. In my opinion, the work has no shortcomings. I have not found any errors or inaccuracies in it. I recommend that teachers of Russian language and literature use the material from this research work.

Reviewer: , teacher of Russian language and literature, Municipal Educational Institution “Rudnogorskaya Secondary School”

Pushkin A. “House in Kolomna” XVII verse.

Article by Vladimir Kozarovetsky “Time to collect stones I”.

Wikipedia site data.

Gililov about William Shakespeare, or the Mystery of the Great Phoenix (2nd edition). M.: Intl. Relationships, 2000.

Encyclopedia of pseudonyms of Russian poets.

Kozlov falsification: A manual for university teachers and students. 2nd ed. M.: Aspect Press, 1996.

"Alexander Pushkin. The Little Humpbacked Horse”, 3rd edition; M., ID KAZAROV, 2011.

Nesterov A. Shakespeare and the “language of birds” / Context 9. Literary and philosophical almanac. No. C.

Textual criticism of the text is a branch of philological sciences that studies works of writing and literature in order to restore history, critically verify and establish their texts, which are then used for further research, interpretation, publication and other purposes.

Origin, emergence; process of education, formation.

Biased or one-sided disclosure (interpretation) of the theme of the work.

“Poets who were not” Ilya Fonyakov.

Municipal General education State-financed organization

"Secondary School No. 54"

Orenburg

Research topic:

« Art literary hoaxes »

Ibragimova Olga

Place of study: student of class 8A

MOBU "Secondary School No. 54"

Orenburg

Supervisor:

Kalinina Irina Borisovna

teacher of Russian language

and literature

2015-2016 academic year year

1. Introduction.

1.1. Hoax - what is it?................................................. 3

1.2. Goal and tasks. ……………………………………. 4

1.3. Hypothesis…………………………………………...4

1.4. Object of study. ……………………………....4

1.5. Subject of study. ……………………………..4

1.6. Research methods. ……………………………...4

2. Main part.

2.1.1. Why literary hoaxhas not yet been describedas an independent form of art?......5

2.1.2.Literary hoax is a synthetic art form. .......6

General principles of the art of literary mystification.

2.2.1. Reasons for hoaxes. ………………………7

2.2.2. Special techniques of literary hoax...8

2.2.3. Exposing hoaxes…………………....9

Literary Hoaxes Revealed……….9

3. Conclusion.

4. List of used literature.

Introduction.

Hoax - what is it?

Once in a literature lesson, when we were studying the life and creative path of A.S. Pushkin, literature teacher Irina Borisovna, mentioning the poet’s uncle, Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, who at one time himself was famous poet, said that he was the owner of the manuscript of the monument of ancient Russian literature “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” which burned during the fire of Moscow in 1812, and that there is a version that the author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” was Vasily Lvovich himself. During this period in Russian and European literature there have been many literary forgeries or literary hoaxes. And since hoaxes are interesting to me, I decided to continue working on this topic.

Mystification has always been, to one degree or another, characteristic of literature. Strictly speaking, what is a literary work if not an attempt to convince someone - a reader, a critic, oneself - of the existence of a reality invented by the writer? Therefore, it is not surprising that not only worlds invented by someone have appeared, but also fake works and invented writers. Everyone who was guided by the desire to attribute to the author a work that was not written by him stopped at creating the work and putting on it not their own names, but the name of the mentioned author. Others did not attempt to publish poems under their own name, but always signed the names of fictitious characters. Still others called their poems “translations” from foreign authors. Some authors went further, becoming “foreigners” writing in Russian. I wanted to learn more about the art of literary hoaxes. I turned to the Internet and found little-known and even unique publications, on the basis of which I wrote my scientific work.

Purpose my job is to identify the general patterns of the art of literary hoax

Tasks:

Find out as much information as possible about literary hoaxes.

Reveal the features of the art of literary hoaxes.

Describe the features of the art of literary hoaxes.

Prove that literary hoax is a synthetic art form.

Identify as many reasons as possible for the emergence of literary hoaxes.

Determine how a hoax is exposed.

Find as many literary hoaxes as possible.

Systematize the collected material.

Research hypothesis: The art of literary hoaxes is a synthetic art that has existed for a very long time and has its own laws and canons.

Object of study: Literary hoaxes.

Subject of study: Literary hoaxes as art.

Research methods:

Complex analysis - consideration of an object from different points of view.

The imperial method is the collection of data and information about the subject of research.

Data processing method.

The induction method is a method in which a general conclusion is built on the basis of partial premises

The generalization method is a method in which the general properties of an object are established.

Main part.

Literary hoax as art.

Why is literary hoax still not described as an independent art form?

“Literary hoaxes have been around as long as literature itself.” Almost every article about literary hoaxes begins with this phrase, and it is impossible to disagree with it. As soon as books began to be published, writers appeared who wanted to play pranks on their contemporaries, and more often, on their descendants. There seems to be some kind of attractive force in “fooling” as many people as possible at the same time. "Reader, … laugh: the height of earthly pleasures, laughing at everyone from around the corner"- Pushkin wrote frankly. Of course, the reasons that pushed writers to commit hoaxes were, as a rule, more serious and deeper, but the love of humor cannot be discounted.

And here the question involuntarily comes to mind: why is literary mystification, having existed for thousands of years, still not described as an independent form of art (after all, for example, the art of war has been described - and quite thoroughly - which, like the art of mystification, is largely relies on intuition)? Most articles only tell the stories of one or another long-solved literary hoax; at best, they propose a classification based on who the literary work is attributed to: a writer, a historical figure, or a fictional author. Meanwhile, literary hoaxes have their own general limitations and special possibilities, their own rules and their own techniques - their own laws of the genre. Suffice it to say that in a literary hoax the work of art itself becomes an enlarged sign with which the hoaxer operates in life - in the game, and the general opinion about this work of art is the same subject of the game as the work itself. In other words, in the “table of ranks” of this game, literary hoax is higher than the work of art itself. And this game has its own masters and losers, its own masters and even geniuses. Of course, literature is not the only art form that has misled many people; There have been hoaxers in painting and music, in archeology and cinema, and even in science. But my interests are primarily related to literature.

Literary hoax is a synthetic art form.

Is literary hoax a synthetic art form? First you need to find out what a synthetic art form is. Synthetic arts are those types of artistic creativity that represent an organic fusion or a relatively free combination of different types of arts, forming a qualitatively new and unified aesthetic whole. In fact, if in order to write a significant literary work, talent and a pen (quill pen, pencil, typewriter, computer keyboard) are enough, then the hoaxer must also have the ability to mislead a large number of people outside the very process of creating a literary work . If a writer masters the art of playing in the Word, then the hoaxer must also possess the art of playing in Life, since literary hoax is group game, carried out simultaneously both in life and in literature. Moreover, not only those who take the hoax offered by him at face value, but also those who are “on the side” of the hoaxer, initiated into the hoax, involuntarily take part in the game. There may be few of them, one or two people, or, as in Shakespeare’s hoax, dozens, but, with rare exceptions, they always take place.

Lann E. L. "Literary mystification."

Dmitriev V.G. Those who hid their name: From the history of pseudonyms and anonyms / Dmitriev, Valentin Grigorievich, Dmitriev, V.G. - M.: Nauka, 1970. - 255s

"Alexander Pushkin. The Little Humpbacked Horse”, 3rd edition; M., ID KAZAROV, 2011

Gililov I.M. The Game of William Shakespeare, or the Mystery of the Great Phoenix (2nd edition). M.: Intl. Relationships, 2000.

Encyclopedia of pseudonyms of Russian poets.

Kozlov V.P. Secrets of falsification: A manual for university teachers and students. 2nd ed. M.: Aspect Press, 1996.

REVIEW

For the research work of Ekaterina Yurievna Parilova, a 10th grade student at the Rudnogorsk Secondary School.

Topic: “The art of literary hoaxes.”

Ekaterina Parilova's work is dedicated to the art of literary hoaxes.

Purpose of the study: to identify general patterns of the art of literary mystification.

When writing a research paper, the student used the following methods: 1) Complex analysis; 2) Imperial method; 3) Data processing method; 4) Method of induction; 5) Generalization method.

Reviewer: Tatyana Aleksandrovna Ziatdinova, teacher of Russian language and literature, Municipal Educational Institution “Rudnogorskaya Secondary School”

textual criticism of a text is a branch of philological sciences that studies works of writing and literature in order to restore history, critically verify and establish their texts, which are then used for further research, interpretation, publication and other purposes.

A hoax is an attempt to mislead someone (readers, the public, etc.) by presenting a non-existent phenomenon or fact as real. Literary hoaxes are considered to be works whose authorship is attributed to another person (real or fictitious) or folk art.

The custom of encrypting your last name or replacing it with another dates back to time immemorial. A literary work does not always bear the true name of its creator. For various reasons, authorship is often disguised. We invite you to learn more about the most striking literary hoaxes of the 20th century and the pseudonyms of writers.

Nickname Cherubina de Gabriac

Hoax In the fall of 1909, a letter in a purple envelope arrives at the editorial office of Apollo magazine. The editor of the magazine, esthete Sergei Makovsky, carefully opening the envelope, sees snow-white sheets of poetry, which are perfumed and arranged with dry leaves. The poems are signed very briefly - “H”. Makovsky convenes the entire editorial staff, consisting mainly of young men, and they read poetry together. Their lines are bright, spicy, and they decide to publish them immediately. Illustrations for them are made by Evgeny Lanceray himself, one of the leading artists of those years. A mysterious writer periodically calls the editor and reports something about herself. For example, that her name is Cherubina de Gabriac, that she is Spanish, but writes in Russian, that she is beautiful and deeply unhappy. Literary Russia goes crazy with delight, the entire editorial staff of Apollo is in absentia in love with a stranger.

Exposure Until her incognito identity was revealed, Elizaveta Dmitrieva, a teacher at the Petrovskaya Women's Gymnasium, wrote caustic critical notes on her own behalf about the poems of Cherubina de Gabriac and wondered if this was a hoax - provoking the literary community to conduct their own investigations and thereby fueling interest in the mysterious Spanish woman , that is, actually creating a “famous poetess” out of thin air. This is partly why everything was revealed quite quickly: already at the end of 1909, the poet Mikhail Kuzmin found out that it was Dmitrieva who spoke on the phone on behalf of de Gabriak, a very smart and talented girl, but not at all a beauty, and in addition, she was also lame. The St. Petersburg gentlemen who fell in love with the Spanish beauty in absentia were severely disappointed. At the end of 1910, another selection of Cherubina’s poems appeared in Apollo, with the final poem “Meeting,” signed with the poetess’s real name. The revelation turned into a severe creative crisis for Dmitrieva: after the break with Gumilyov and Voloshin and the scandalous duel between the two poets, Dmitrieva fell silent for a long time. However, in 1927, while in exile, at the suggestion of a close friend of recent years, sinologist and translator Yu. Shchutsky, she created another literary hoax - the seven-line cycle “The House under the Pear Tree”, written on behalf of the “philosopher Li Xiang Tzu”, exiled to a foreign land “for his belief in the immortality of the human spirit.”

The meaning of the hoax Maximilian Voloshin liked Dmitrieva’s poems, but when he brought the poetess to Makovsky, one of the publishers of Apollo, he was not impressed. Perhaps because Elizabeth herself seemed unsightly to him. Voloshin and Dmitrieva conceived the hoax in the summer of 1909 in Koktebel: a sonorous pseudonym and a literary mask of a mysterious Catholic beauty were invented.

Quote“I stand at a great crossroads. I left you. I won't write poetry anymore. I don't know what I'll do. Max, you brought out the power of creativity in me for a moment, but then took it away from me forever. Let my poems be a symbol of my love for you” (from a letter from Elizaveta Dmitrieva to Maximilian Voloshin).

Poetry

Alias Max Fry

Hoax Since 1996, the St. Petersburg publishing house "Azbuka" began publishing books by the writer Max Frei. Genre: fantasy with elements of parody. The novels gradually gained popularity, and by 2001 Max Fry had become one of the most published Russian science fiction writers. Eventually, the author's popularity grew to such an extent that it became necessary to present it to the public: Fry became a real star.

Exposure Max Fry is not listed among foreign authors; for Russia such a first and last name is atypical - that means it is a pseudonym, everyone decided. The publisher joked that Max Fry was a blue-eyed black man. This continued until the fall of 2001, when on Dmitry Dibrov’s television program the host introduced Svetlana Martynchik to the audience as the real author of Max Frei’s books. And then a scandal broke out: Martynchik accused ABC of trying to register “Max Fry” as a trademark and get literary blacks to write for her.

The meaning of the hoax In the 1990s, against the backdrop of the flow of foreign science fiction pouring into the domestic market, Russian authors became somewhat lost. As a result, books of domestic origin began to appear, but under foreign names. Dmitry Gromov and Oleg Ladyzhensky wrote on behalf of Henry Lyon Oldie, and Elena Khaetskaya became Madeline Simons. For the same reason, the pseudonym “Max Fry” was born. By the way, Fry’s books always bear the copyright of Martynchik herself. In fact, we are talking about a publishing, not a writer's, hoax: the figure of the author is carefully mythologized, and at the moment the pseudonym is revealed, if the author is still popular by that time, you can make good money.

Quote“Even after the story of the attempt to register the name Max Fry as a trademark was revealed, they [Azbuka publishing house] quickly suggested to me: let’s put the guys in prison, and they will write books—candidates of philological sciences, no less! So, they will write a book per quarter, and for this they will pay me one hundred thousand rubles, also per quarter” (from an interview with Svetlana Martynchik).

P.S. You can borrow books from the “Echo Labyrinths” series from the central library, the city children’s and youth library, and the library named after L.A. Gladina.

Pseudonym Boris Akunin

Hoax In 1998, the detective novel “Azazel” was published about the adventures of the young St. Petersburg detective Erast Fandorin. The author is listed on the cover - Boris Akunin. The genre - “intelligent historical detective story” - turned out to be in demand, although not immediately. At the beginning of the 2000s, Akunin's books became bestsellers, and conversations began about film adaptations, which meant much more money for the author than just royalties for novels.

Exposure As Akunin's books became more popular and their audience wider, a variety of assumptions were put forward, including that the author was actually Vladimir Zhirinovsky or Tatyana Tolstaya. However, already in 2000 it became known that under this pseudonym was hiding a Japanese translator, deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine “Foreign Literature” Grigory Chkhartishvili. He himself admitted this, giving several interviews and beginning to appear in public not only as Chkhartishvili, but also as Akunin.

The meaning of the hoax Throughout the 90s, writing popular books of the “low genre”, that is, detective stories and thrillers, was considered an activity unworthy of an intelligent person: the author should not be smarter than his works. Moreover, as the writer himself admitted in an interview, bookstore merchandisers would never have pronounced Chkhartishvili’s name anyway. But Boris Akunin speaks easily and immediately sets the school-graduated reader in the mood for the classics of the 19th century. "Aku-nin" means " bad person", "scoundrel." According to another version, this pseudonym was chosen in honor of the famous Russian anarchist Bakunin. Well, maybe.

Quote“I needed a pseudonym because this type of writing is very different from all my other activities. When Akunin sits down at the computer and starts pounding on the keyboard, his thoughts don’t work the same way as Chkhartishvili’s, writing an article or essay. We are so different. Akunin is significantly kinder than me. This is the first thing. Secondly, he, unlike me, is an idealist. And thirdly, he firmly knows that God exists, for which I envy him” (from an interview with Grigory Chkhartishvili).

P.S. You can borrow B. Akunin’s books from any library in Apatity.

NicknamesAnatoly Brusnikin, Anna Borisova

Hoax In the fall of 2007, all of Moscow was covered with advertisements for the novel “The Ninth Savior.” The author is an unknown Anatoly Brusnikin. According to rumors, the AST publishing house invested up to a million dollars in the advertising campaign - colossal money even for the pre-crisis book market. Hardly little-known writer could qualify for such investments. To the usual reviews in decent publications, suspiciously laudatory texts in the yellow press are added, and the writer Elena Chudinova claims that the plot of the book was stolen from her. In addition to “The Ninth Savior,” “Hero of Another Time” and “Bellona” were also released.

Exposure Suspicion quickly falls on Grigory Chkhartishvili: the action of the novel takes place at the end of the seventeenth century, and the book is written in the language of the nineteenth century, like the novels of Boris Akunin. Well, the pseudonym is painfully similar: both here and there “A. B." The search for the true author takes place mainly in the tabloids and is fueled by the publishing house itself: some facts are periodically leaked to the press, for example, an indistinct photograph of Brusnikin, where he either looks like Chkhartishvili, or doesn’t look like him. Meanwhile, at the beginning of 2008, the Atticus publishing group, which has much less financial resources, published the novel “There” by another unknown author— Anna Borisova (and also “Creative” and “Vremena goda”). Finally, in mid-January 2012, writer Grigory Chkhartishvili officially announced on his blog that Anatoly Brusnikin and Anna Borisova are him.

The meaning of the hoax By inventing Borisova and Brusnikin, Chkhartishvili set up an experiment - on himself and the publishing market. Can publishers promote an unknown writer from scratch and will readers accept this writer? How much money do you need for this? Which genres is the market ready to accept and which ones is not? In fact, the hoax turned into an entire marketing research.

Quote“I was occupied with the following business problem. Suppose there is some unknown writer in whom the publishing house is ready to seriously invest, because it firmly believes in the prospects of this author. How to proceed? How much money should you invest in promotion so as not to remain in the red? What techniques should I use? What is the sequence of steps? I talked on this topic one-on-one with Jan Helemsky, head of the AST publishing house. I remember I was flattered that he said, without even reading the manuscript of Brusnikin’s first novel: “I’m in the game, I’m very interested in this”” (from Grigory Chkhartishvili’s blog).

P.S. You can borrow A. Brusnikin’s books “The Nine Savior” and “Hero of Another Time” in the central library, the city children’s and youth library, the library named after L.A. Gladina, and the family reading library. And A. Borisova’s books “There” and “Vremena goda” are in the central library and the family reading library.

Nickname: Holm van Zaitchik

Hoax Since 2000, seven novels have been published in Russian under the general title “Eurasian Symphony” by a certain Dutch writer and humanist Holm van Zaichik about a utopian-nice parallel historical reality in which China, the Mongol Empire and Rus' are united into one superpower, Ordus. These stories belong simultaneously to the genres of alternative history and detective fiction, are mixed with Chinese stylization, and are thickly flavored with political propaganda with the addition love lines and with a huge number of well-recognized quotes.

Exposure The mystery of van Zaitchik was an open secret from the very beginning, although parody interviews were published in the name of the “humanist”. The fact that two St. Petersburg authors were hiding behind this pseudonym, which refers to the name of the Dutchman Robert van Gulik (one of the greatest orientalists of the 20th century and the author of the famous detective stories about Judge Dee), became known a year later, when they began to receive literary awards for their project at science fiction festivals, and then honestly admit in interviews that it’s them.

The meaning of the hoax The openly ironic content of the work (a utopia parodying Russian history, and many of the characters have real prototypes among the authors’ friends and acquaintances) encouraged the co-authors to continue the game. At the same time, the serious science fiction writer Rybakov and the serious historian Alimov would look bad as authors on the cover of such a book. But the openly bantering van Zaychik is very good. At the turn of the millennium, literature gravitated towards dystopias, no one wrote utopias, and additional literary play was required to justify positive prose.

Quote“I love utopias. Their appearance is always a harbinger of a sharp historical breakthrough. We've eaten too much dystopia. Every appearance of utopias foreshadows leaps in development. The rejection of utopia is, in principle, the rejection of historical effort in general. Easy, accessible skeptical disbelief that things can and should be good here” (from an interview with Vyacheslav Rybakov).

P.S. You can borrow all of Holm van Zaitchik's books from the central library, the city children's and youth library, and the family reading library.

Pseudonym Mikhail Ageev

Hoax In 1934, the book “A Romance with Cocaine” was published in Paris - a confessional story of the protagonist’s coming of age in pre- and post-revolutionary Moscow against the backdrop of historical events. The novel was liked by most famous emigre authors and critics, including Merezhkovsky and Khodasevich. Even then it was believed that this was someone’s pseudonym, since no other texts (except for the story published along with the novel) were listed as Ageev’s, and the author of one book who appeared out of nowhere is an extremely suspicious phenomenon. In the 1980s, the novel was republished in the West, and it had big success. In the 90s he reached Russia. Intelligent schoolchildren and students read to him, and perhaps it was he who influenced Pelevin when he wrote Chapaev and Emptiness.

Exposure For a long time there was a popular version that Ageev was none other than Vladimir Nabokov: the facts of the biography of Nabokov and the main character of “A Romance with Cocaine” coincided, structurally this thing resembled early works Nabokov, finally, the names of the characters were often found in Nabokov’s texts. At the same time, the famous poetess Lydia Chervinskaya insisted that the author was a certain Marco Levi, but her version was not taken into account. Finally, in 1996, thanks to the efforts of literary scholars Gabriel Superfin and Marina Sorokina, it turned out that the author's name is really Levi, but not Marco, but Mark. The fact is that the novel quite accurately describes the Moscow private Kreiman gymnasium, where Mark Levy actually studied in the years described by the author. All questions were finally resolved in 1997, when letters from Levi himself were found and published, in which he negotiated the publication of his book.

The meaning of the hoax The biography of the real author of “A Romance with Cocaine” is full of blank spots. It is known that in the 1920s - 1930s he wandered around Europe, studied in Germany, worked in France, possibly collaborated with Soviet intelligence, exchanged Soviet citizenship for Paraguayan, and then returned Soviet citizenship. After the war he lived in Yerevan, where he died in 1973. Given such a biography and in that historical situation, publishing a confessional novel under a pseudonym seems a reasonable precaution: the author invented a “writer” who is not associated with outside world political, social or other obligations, which means he is free to say whatever he wants.

Quote“In 1930, he (Levi. - “RR”) left Germany and came to Turkey, where he was engaged in teaching languages and even literary activities. He wrote a book called “The Tale of Cocaine,” which was published in the Parisian emigrant publication “House of Books.” Levi points out that the book is harmless, it does not contain a single word directed against the USSR, and in general it is his forced work, written for the sake of its existence. From the conversations that took place, one could draw the conclusion that Levi, apparently, thought through and realized the depth of the mistake he made and is trying to make amends for it in practical work.” (From a certificate from the Soviet Consulate General in Istanbul).

P.S. You can borrow M. Ageev’s book “A Romance with Cocaine” at the central library and the library named after L.A. Gladina.

Nickname Abram Tertz

Hoax Since the early 1960s, works signed by a certain Abram Tertz began to appear in Russian-language foreign publications. One of the most famous was the story “Lyubimov” - about a small Soviet town in which a bicycle master seized power, became a dictator and began to build real communism. The same author published an ironic and caustic article on socialist realism.

Exposure In the USSR, Tertz’s texts were considered anti-Soviet and discrediting the “Soviet state and social system,” after which the KGB began searching for the author. It is not known exactly how Sinyavsky’s authorship was established - perhaps we are talking about someone’s betrayal or a graphological examination. In 1965-1966, a high-profile trial took place against Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel (he also published in the West under a pseudonym). And although collective letters were received in defense of the writers both from abroad and from many of their Soviet colleagues, nevertheless, the court found them guilty. Sinyavsky received seven years for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. In 1991, the case was reviewed and the verdict was overturned. But there remains a letter from Mikhail Sholokhov, in which he calls the books of Sinyavsky and Daniel “dirt from a puddle.”

The meaning of the hoax Pure precaution. To publish in the West, and even with texts that censorship would never have allowed in the USSR, under one’s own name was pure suicide. By publishing under pseudonyms, the authors tried to protect themselves and their loved ones. However, Sinyavsky continued to publish prose under the name of Abram Tertz even after his release from the camp and departure to emigrate. According to the version voiced by his wife Maria Rozanova after the writer’s death, the pseudonym was taken in honor of the hero of an Odessa criminal song - a pickpocket. By this, Sinyavsky seemed to admit that he was playing a dangerous game. And having become famous under this name, he no longer wanted to give it up: the fictional writer’s biography turned out to be more glorious and exciting than that of the real one.

P.S. You can borrow the collected works of A. Tertz (in 2 volumes) from the central library, city children's and youth library, family reading library, libraries No. 1 and No. 2.

Nickname Emil Azhar

Hoax In 1974, writer Emile Azhar published his debut novel, “Darling.” Critics receive it with a bang, and then the author who writes under this pseudonym is announced - the young writer Paul Pavlovich, nephew famous writer Romain Gary. His second novel, The Whole Life Ahead, received the Prix Goncourt, France's top literary award. In total, Azhar has four novels coming out.

Exposure Gary claimed that it was he who discovered the talent of a writer in his nephew. However, some suspicions arose quite quickly: the novels of the debutant Pavlovich were too mature and skillful. However, until Gary’s suicide at the end of 1980, it was not known for certain who Azhar was. A few days before his death, the author completed the essay “The Life and Death of Emile Azhar,” which was published in the summer of 1981, in which he detailed the history of his hoax.

The meaning of the hoax By the mid-1970s, Romain Gary, once a favorite of the public and critics, winner of the Prix Goncourt, was considered worn out and exhausted. By creating a pseudonym, Gary wanted to prove to both his critics and himself that this was not so. As a result, he became the only person in French history to receive the Goncourt Prize twice. But it was the fame that went not to the writer himself, but to the Azhar he invented, that became the cause of a deep mental crisis, and then Gary’s suicide: if at first the writer laughed at the critics who began to chase a new star, then in the end it was someone else’s success, which, in theory, , should have belonged to him, began to oppress him.

Quote“I was driven out of my domain. Another one has settled in the mirage I created. Having materialized, Azhar put an end to my ghostly existence in him. The vicissitudes of fate: my dream turned against me” (Romain Gary “The Life and Death of Emile Azhar”).

P.S. Books by R. Gary (“Kites”, “Promise at Dawn”, “The Dance of Genghis Khaim”, “The Light of a Woman”, “Pseudo” and “The Fears of King Solomon” - the last two novels were published under the pseudonym E. Azhar) you can borrow from the central library and other city libraries.

Writers' pseudonyms

Anna Akhmatova

Gorenko Anna Andreevna (1889-1966)

Russian poet. For her pseudonym, Anna Gorenko chose the surname of her great-grandmother, who descended from the Tatar Khan Akhmat. She later said: “Only a seventeen-year-old crazy girl could choose a Tatar surname for a Russian poetess... That’s why it occurred to me to take a pseudonym for myself because my dad, having learned about my poems, said: “Don’t disgrace my name.” - “And I don’t need your name!” - I said...” (L. Chukovskaya “Notes about Anna Akhmatova”).

Arkady Arkanov

Steinbock Arkady Mikhailovich (born 1933)

Russian satirist writer. In the early 1960s, Arkady Steinbock began to engage in literary activities, but not everyone liked his last name - it was too Jewish. As a child, Arkady's name was simply Arkan - hence the pseudonym.

Eduard Bagritsky

Dzyubin Eduard Georgievich (1895-1934)

Russian and Soviet poet, translator. He had a phenomenal memory and could recite poems by almost any poet by heart. It is unknown where the pseudonym comes from, but times were “crimson” then. He was also published in Odessa newspapers and humor magazines under the pseudonyms “Someone Vasya”, “Nina Voskresenskaya”, “Rabkor Gortsev”.

Demyan Bedny

Pridvorov Efim Alekseevich (1883-1945)

Russian and Soviet poet. Efim Alekseevich’s surname is in no way suitable for a proletarian writer. The pseudonym Demyan Bedny is the village nickname of his uncle, a people's fighter for justice.

Andrey Bely

Bugaev Boris Nikolaevich (1880-1934)

Russian poet, prose writer, critic, publicist, memoirist, leading theorist of symbolism. His teacher and mentor S.M. Soloviev suggested that he take the pseudonym Andrei Bely (white color - “complete synthesis of all mental abilities”).

Kir Bulychev

Mozheiko Igor Vsevolodovich (1934-2003)

Russian science fiction writer, film scriptwriter, historian-orientalist (PhD in Historical Sciences). Author of scientific works on history South-East Asia(signed with his real name), numerous fantastic stories, stories (often combined into cycles), the collection “Some Poems” (2000). The pseudonym is composed of the name of his wife (Kira) and the maiden name of the writer’s mother. As the writer admitted, the idea of a pseudonym arose a long time ago, when he was still a graduate student at the Institute of Oriental Studies and wrote his first science fiction story. He was afraid of criticism and ridicule: “I skipped the vegetable depot! He didn’t show up to the trade union meeting... And he also indulges in fantastic stories.” Subsequently, the name “Kirill” on the covers of books began to be written in abbreviation - “Kir.”, and then the period was shortened, and this is how the now famous “Kir Bulychev” turned out.

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778)

French writer, philosopher and educator. One of the largest French enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century, poet, prose writer, satirist, publicist, founder of Voltairianism. The nickname Voltaire is an anagram of "Arouet le j(eune)" - "Arouet the younger" (Latin spelling - AROVETLI)

Arkady Gaidar

Golikov Arkady Petrovich (1904-1941)

Soviet writer, grandfather of Yegor Gaidar, one of the founders of modern children's literature. His most famous works are “The Fate of the Drummer” and “Timur and His Team”. There are two versions of the origin of the pseudonym Gaidar. The first, which has become widespread, is “gaidar” - in Mongolian “a horseman galloping in front”. According to another version, Arkady Golikov could take the name Gaidar as his own: in Bashkiria and Khakassia, where he visited, the names Gaidar (Geidar, Haydar, etc.) are found very often. This version was supported by the writer himself.

Alexander Herzen

Yakovlev Alexander Ivanovich (1812-1870)

Russian writer, philosopher, revolutionary. Author of the novel "Who is to Blame?" and the essay "The Past and Thoughts." Herzen is the illegitimate son of a Russian writer, philosopher, revolutionary. The author of the novel by landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev and German Henrietta-Wilhelmina Louise Haag. The surname Herzen - “child of the heart” (from German Herz - heart) was invented by his father.

Grigory Gorin

Ofshtein Grigory Izrailevich (1910-2000)

Maksim Gorky

Peshkov Alexey Maksimovich (1868-1936)

Russian writer, public figure, literary critic, publicist, first Chairman of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR. The first story was published in 1892 under the pseudonym Gorky, which characterized the difficult life of the writer, and this pseudonym was used in the future. At the very beginning of his literary career, he also wrote feuilletons in the Samara Newspaper under the pseudonym Yehudiel Khlamida. M. Gorky himself emphasized that correct pronunciation his last name is Peshkov, although almost everyone pronounces it as Peshkov.

Irina Grekova

Elena Sergeevna Ventzel (1907 - 2002)

Russian prose writer, mathematician. Doctor of Technical Sciences, author of numerous scientific works on problems of applied mathematics Pridvorov Efim Alekseevich (1883-1945), a university textbook on probability theory, a book on game theory, etc. Like Lewis Carroll, his scientific works She published under her real name, and published novels and stories under a “mathematical” pseudonym (from the name of the French letter “y”, which goes back to Latin). As a writer, she began publishing in 1957 and immediately became famous and loved; her novel “The Pulpit” was literally read to the gills.

Alexander Green

Grinevsky Alexander Stefanovich (1880-1932)

Ilya Ilf

Fainzilberg Ilya Arnoldovich (1897-1937)

Veniamin Kaverin

Zilber Veniamin Alexandrovich (1902-1988)

Soviet writer, his most famous work is the novel “Two Captains.” The pseudonym “Kaverin” was taken from a hussar, a friend of the young Pushkin (introduced by him under his own name in “Eugene Onegin”).

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898)

English mathematician and theologian, as well as a writer, author of the fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland". Magazine publisher and writer Edmund Yates advised Dodgson to come up with a pseudonym, and in Dodgson's Diaries an entry appears dated February 11, 1865: “Wrote to Mr. Yates, offering him a choice of pseudonyms: 1) Edgar Cutwellis (the name Edgar Cutwellis is obtained by rearranging the letters from Charles Lutwidge ); 2) Edgard W. C. Westhill (the method of obtaining the pseudonym is the same as in the previous case); 3) Louis Carroll (Louis from Lutwidge - Ludwick - Louis, Carroll from Charles 4) Lewis Carroll (by the same); the principle of "translation" of the names Charles Lutwidge into Latin and the reverse "translation" from Latin into English)". The choice fell on Lewis Carroll. Since then, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson signed all his “serious” mathematical and logical works with his real name, and all his literary works with a pseudonym.

Eduard Limonov

Savenko Eduard Veniaminovich (born 1943)

Infamous writer, journalist, social and political figure, founder and head of the liquidated National Bolshevik Party. Since July 2006, he has been an active participant in the “Other Russia” movement in opposition to the Kremlin, the organizer of a number of “Dissent Marches”. The pseudonym Limonov was invented for him by the artist Vagrich Bakhchanyan (according to other sources - Sergei Dovlatov).

Alexandra Marinina

Alekseeva Marina Anatolyevna (born 1957)

Author of numerous detective novels. In 1991, together with her colleague Alexander Gorkin, she wrote the detective story “Six-Winged Seraphim”, which was published in the magazine “Police” in the fall of 1992. The story was signed by the pseudonym of Alexander Marinin, compiled from the names of the authors.

Evgeniy Petrov

Evgeny Petrovich Kataev (1901-1942)

Russian and Soviet writer, brother of the writer Valentin Kataev, co-author (together with I. Ilf) famous novels“Golden Calf”, “12 Chairs”, etc. The pseudonym Petrov is a surname derived from the patronymic, since one Kataev, i.e. his brother Valentin was already a famous writer.

Kozma Prutkov

Alexey Tolstoy and the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers - Alexey, Alexander and Vladimir.

Prutkov - fictional writer, one of a kind literary phenomenon. Two talented poets, Count A.K. Tolstoy and Alexey Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov, together with Vladimir Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikov and with some participation of Zhemchuzhnikov’s third brother, Alexander Mikhailovich, created a type of important complacency and self-confidence of the St. Petersburg official (director of the assay tent), who, out of vanity, practiced different kinds literature. Famous quotes: “If you want to be happy, be happy”, “Look at the root!”, “Don’t cut everything that grows!”, “It is more useful to walk the path of life than the whole universe”, “An egoist is like someone who has been sitting in a well for a long time”, “Genius is like a hill rising on a plain”, “Death is placed at the end of life in order to more conveniently prepare for it”, “Do not take anything to the extreme: a person who wants to eat too late runs the risk of eating the next day in the morning”, “Do not I completely understand why many people call fate a turkey, and not some other bird that is more similar to fate?”

George Sand

Aurore Dupin (1804-1876)

French writer. Since it was almost impossible for a woman to get published at that time, Aurora Dupin took a male pseudonym.

Igor Severyanin

Lotarev Igor Vladimirovich (1887-1941)

Poet of the "Silver Age". The pseudonym Northerner emphasizes the poet’s “northern” origin (he was born in the Vologda province). According to another version, in his youth he went with his father on a trip to Far East(1904). This trip inspired the poet - hence the pseudonym Northerner. For most of his literary activity, the author preferred to write Igor-Severyanin. He perceived the pseudonym as a middle name, not a surname.

Nadezhda TEFFI

Lokhvitskaya Nadezhda Alexandrovna (1872-1952)

Russian writer, poetess, author of satirical poems and feuilletons. She was called the first Russian humorist of the early 20th century, the “queen of Russian humor,” but she was never a supporter of pure humor, always combining it with sadness and witty observations of the life around her. She explained the origin of her pseudonym as follows: she knew a certain stupid man named Stefan, whom the servant called Steffy. Believing that stupid people are usually happy, she took this nickname for herself as a pseudonym, shortening it “for the sake of delicacy” to “Taffy.” Another version of the origin of the pseudonym is offered by researchers of Teffi’s creativity, according to whom the pseudonym for Nadezhda Alexandrovna, who loved hoaxes and jokes, and was also the author of literary parodies and feuilletons, became part of literary game aimed at creating an appropriate image of the author. There is also a version that Teffi took her pseudonym because her sister, the poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya, who was called the “Russian Sappho,” was published under her real name.

Daniil Kharms

Yuvachev Daniil Ivanovich (1905-1942)

Russian writer and poet. Yuvachev had many pseudonyms, and he playfully changed them: Kharms, Haarms, Dandan, Charms, Karl Ivanovich Shusterling, etc. The pseudonym "Kharms" (a combination of the French "charme" - "charm, charm" and the English "harm" - "harm" ") most accurately reflected the essence of the writer's attitude to life and creativity.

Vasily Yan

Yanchevetsky Vasily Grigorievich (1875-1954)

Dmitriev V. G. Invented names: (Stories about pseudonyms) / V. G. Dmitriev. - M.: Sovremennik, 1986. - 255 p.

The book tells about the reasons for the appearance of pseudonyms and cryptonyms, about the methods of their formation, about the role they played in the work of a number of outstanding Russian and foreign writers, the semantic meaning of many foreign language pseudonyms is explained. Fascinating stories will introduce the reader to other methods of disguising the author, to the invented names that writers gave to their literary opponents and book characters. Separate chapters are devoted to the pseudonyms of artists, theater and circus performers.

First story. Why do you need a pseudonym?

Second story. How pseudonyms were created.

Third story. Ancient times.

Story four. At the dawn of Russian literature.

Fifth story. Lyceum "cricket".

Story six. Pechorin's acquaintance.

Story seven. From the beekeeper Rudy Panka to Konrad Lilienschwager.

The eighth story. From Savva Namordnikov to Nikanor Zatrapezny.

Ninth story. How the "Iskraists" signed.

Tenth story. Antosha Chekhonte and his contemporaries.

Story eleven. "Sespel" means snowdrop.

Twelfth story. Why is there a double surname?

Story thirteen. The nickname serves as a mask.

Story fourteen. Pseudonyms of revolutionaries.

Story fifteen. Artists' pseudonyms.

Story sixteen. Stage names.

Location of the book: central city library.

Dmitriev V.G. Those who hid their name: From the history of pseudonyms and anonyms / Dmitriev, Valentin Grigorievich, Dmitriev, V.G. - M.: Nauka, 1970. - 255 p.

The book talks about the origin of pseudonyms, reveals their semantic meaning, methods of their formation, makes an attempt to systematize some facts from this interesting area of literary criticism, and gives the most striking examples from Russian and foreign literature.

Location of the book: library named after L.A. Gladina.

Osovtsev, S. What's in my name for you? // Neva. - 2001. - No. 7. - P. 183-195.

Sindalovsky N.A. Pseudonym: legends and myths of the second name // Neva. - 2011. - N 2. - P.215-238.

The Silver Age loved pranks and hoaxes, but one of them went beyond the scope of private entertainment and turned into significant event literary and cultural life 1910s Is in history Cherubins de Gabriac something that disturbs the heart even more than a century later: perhaps the poems themselves, perhaps the fate of their author.

Trouble in the editorial office

In 1909-1917 The Apollo magazine, dedicated to literature, painting and theater, occupied a very special place among the printed publications of the Russian capital. Today it would be called “cult”: publication in “Apollo” meant almost automatic inclusion of the novice author in the guild of poets. However, getting published in Apollo was not easy. In August 1909, Makovsky, who was then acting not only as publisher, but also as editor-in-chief, received a letter.

It differed sharply from other “gravity” both in appearance - leaves in mourning frames, arranged with spicy herbs, elegant handwriting, and in content - the poems were sophisticated and mysterious. Makovsky was intrigued, especially since soon a stranger, who introduced herself as Cherubina, called on the phone, and then sent another letter with wonderful poems.

When Makovsky showed Cherubina’s poems to Apollo employees, among whom was M. Voloshin, they supported his decision to immediately publish them. But more powerful than the embossed lines was the personality of their author. The mysterious Cherubina communicated with Makovsky only by phone, spoke about herself in hints, and in poetry wrote about ancient coats of arms, confession in a church and other things exotic for a Russian intellectual.

Heiress of the Crusaders

Gradually - from hints, fragments of phrases, half-confession and metaphors - the image of the poetess emerged. In a luxurious mansion, where mere mortals have no access, lives a young beauty with the golden braids of a princess and the green eyes of a witch. She is a noble Spaniard by origin, a passionate Catholic by religion, and a poet by vocation.

Seeing her, it is impossible not to fall in love, but she loves only Christ and is seriously thinking about entering a monastery. She doesn't need royalties - she's immensely rich; she doesn't need fame - she's above this vanity fair. This image fit so well into the style of decadence that not only Makovsky, but almost the entire editorial staff of the magazine fell in love with Cherubina de Gabriak.

The “passion for Cherubina” lasted for several months, regularly sending new poems and creating new reasons for excitement. Then she became seriously ill, falling unconscious after a night prayer vigil; then she leaves for Paris. Driven into a frenzy, Makovsky vowed to tear off the veil of secrecy from Cherubina at all costs and fall at the feet of the green-eyed naiad, experienced in “mystical eros.” Soon his wish came true, albeit in a somewhat unexpected way.

Duel and exposure

In November 1909, an unheard of incident happened: M. Voloshin, known for his good-natured disposition and physical strength, approached N. Gumilyov and slapped him in the face in the presence of witnesses. It didn’t come to a fight between the famous poets: they were separated, but it came to a duel, which took place on November 22, 1909 on the Black River. The duel ended without bloodshed, but rumors spread throughout St. Petersburg: they were fighting because of a woman, because of that same Cherubina. But it turned out that both of them knew her?

It soon became clear that Makovsky himself was familiar with Cherubina. In the summer, a young teacher, Elizaveta Dmitrieva, brought him her poems: pretty, but lame and, oh horror, poorly dressed. According to Makovsky, a real poetess could not look like that, and the poems were returned to the author. If Dmitrieva had not been part of Voloshin’s circle, this would have been the end of it; but she told the story of the unsuccessful publication to a poet who loved practical jokes, and he came up with a “game of Cherubina” on a summer Koktebel evening.

The fact that Dmitrieva and Voloshin started the game for its own sake, and not for the sake of publication, is evidenced by the fact that Elizaveta could be published in Apollo under her own name - even after an unsuccessful first visit. All she had to do was ask her lover N. Gumilyov, and he would persuade Makovsky to publish a couple of her works on the pages of the magazine. But I didn’t want to ask Dmitriev.

The teacher, who lived on a meager salary, was seduced by the opportunity to feel, at least for a short time, like a fatal beauty playing with men’s hearts. Voloshin came up with themes, Elizaveta wrote poems and intrigued Makovsky over the phone, portraying a mysterious aristocrat. But every game comes to an end sooner or later. Today they would say that Voloshin and Dmitrieva created a “virtual character.”

erupted loud scandal. A stream of the dirtiest gossip swirled around Dmitrieva: Voloshin wrote poetry for her; and she slept with two poets at the same time; and scary as a toad. The shocked girl stopped writing poetry and left the world of literature for a long time. Dmitrieva’s fate was sad: exiled to Central Asia, she died in 1928 at the age of 41 from liver cancer, and her grave has not survived. All that remains is the legend of the brilliant beauty Cherubina and her poems.

BONUS