The life and work of Kuprin present an extremely complex and motley picture. It is difficult to summarize them briefly. All life experience taught him to call for humanity. All Kuprin's stories and stories have the same meaning - love for a person.
Childhood
In 1870 in the dull and waterless town of Narovchat, Penza province.
Orphaned very early. When he was one year old, his father, a small clerk, died. There was nothing remarkable in the city, except for the artisans who made sieves and barrels. The baby’s life went on without joy, but there were plenty of grievances. He and his mother visited acquaintances and obsequiously begged for at least a cup of tea. And the “benefactors” stuck their hand in for a kiss.
Wanderings and studies
Three years later, in 1873, the mother and her son left for Moscow. She was taken to a widow's house, and her son from the age of 6, in 1876, to an orphanage. Kuprin would later describe these establishments in the stories “The Runaways” (1917), “Holy Lies,” and “At Rest.” These are all stories about people whom life has mercilessly thrown out. This is how the story about the life and work of Kuprin begins. It's difficult to talk about this briefly.
Service
When the boy grew up, he was able to be placed first in a military gymnasium (1880), then in cadet corps and, finally, to the cadet school (1888). The training was free, but painful.
So the long and joyless 14 war years dragged on with their senseless drills and humiliations. The continuation was adult service in the regiment, which was stationed in small towns near Podolsk (1890-1894). The first story that A. I. Kuprin will publish, opening military theme, - “Inquiry” (1894), then “Lilac Bush” (1894), “Night Shift” (1899), “Duel” (1904-1905) and others.
Years of wandering
In 1894, Kuprin decisively and dramatically changed his life. He retires and lives very meagerly. Alexander Ivanovich settled in Kyiv and began writing feuilletons for newspapers, in which he depicts the life of the city with colorful strokes. But knowledge of life was lacking. What did he see except military service? He was interested in everything. And Balaklava fishermen, and Donetsk factories, and the nature of Polesie, and unloading watermelons, and a flight to hot-air balloon, and circus performers. He thoroughly studied the life and way of life of the people who made up the backbone of society. Their language, jargons and customs. It is almost impossible to briefly convey Kuprin’s life and work, rich in impressions.
Literary activity
It was during these years (1895) that Kuprin became a professional writer, constantly publishing his works in various newspapers. He meets Chekhov (1901) and everyone around him. And earlier he became friends with I. Bunin (1897) and then with M. Gorky (1902). One after another, stories come out that make society shudder. “Moloch” (1896) is about the severity of capitalist oppression and the lack of rights of workers. “The Duel” (1905), which is impossible to read without anger and shame for the officers.
The writer chastely touches on the theme of nature and love. “Olesya” (1898), “Shulamith” (1908), “ Garnet bracelet"(1911) knows the whole world. He also knows the life of animals: “Emerald” (1911), “Starlings”. Around these years, Kuprin can already support his family on literary earnings and gets married. His daughter is born. Then he gets divorced, and in his second marriage he also has a daughter. In 1909 Kuprin was awarded Pushkin Prize. Kuprin's life and work, briefly described, can hardly fit into a few paragraphs.
Emigration and return to homeland
Kuprin did not accept the October Revolution with the instinct and heart of an artist. He is leaving the country. But, publishing abroad, he yearns for his homeland. Age and illness fail. Finally, he finally returned to his beloved Moscow. But, after living here for a year and a half, he, seriously ill, died in 1938 at the age of 67 in Leningrad. This is how Kuprin’s life and work end. Summary and the description does not convey the bright and rich impressions of his life, reflected on the pages of books.
About the writer's prose and biography
The essay briefly presented in our article suggests that everyone is the master of their own destiny. When a person is born, he is caught up in the flow of life. It carries some people into a stagnant swamp and leaves them there, some flounder, trying to somehow cope with the current, and some simply float with the flow - wherever it takes them. But there are people, like Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, who stubbornly row against the tide all their lives.
Born in a provincial, unremarkable town, he will love it forever and will return to this simple, dusty world of harsh childhood. He will love the bourgeois and meager Narovchat inexplicably.
Maybe for the carved frames and geraniums on the windows, maybe for the vast fields, or maybe for the smell of dusty earth washed down by the rain. And maybe this poverty will draw him in his youth, after the army drill that he experienced for 14 years, to recognize Rus' in all the fullness of its colors and dialects. Wherever his paths will take him. And to the Polesie forests, and to Odessa, and to metallurgical plants, and to the circus, and to the skies on an airplane, and to unload bricks and watermelons. Everything is learned by a person full of inexhaustible love for people, for their way of life, and he will reflect all his impressions in novels and stories that will be read by his contemporaries and that are not outdated even now, a hundred years after they were written.
How can the young and beautiful Shulamith, the beloved of King Solomon, become old, how can the forest witch Olesya stop loving the timid townsman, how can Sashka the musician from “Gambrinus” (1907) stop playing. And Artaud (1904) is still devoted to his owners, who love him endlessly. The writer saw all this with his own eyes and left it to us on the pages of his books, so that we could be horrified by the heavy tread of capitalism in Moloch, nightmare life young women in "The Pit" (1909-1915), terrible death beautiful and innocent Emerald.
Kuprin was a dreamer those who love life. And all the stories passed through his attentive gaze and sensitive, intelligent heart. While maintaining friendship with writers, Kuprin never forgot workers, fishermen, or sailors, that is, those who are called ordinary people. They were united by inner intelligence, which is given not by education and knowledge, but by the depth of human communication, the ability to sympathize, and natural delicacy. He had a hard time emigrating. In one of his letters he wrote: “What more talented person, the more difficult it is for him without Russia.” Without considering himself a genius, he simply missed his homeland and, upon returning, died after a serious illness in Leningrad.
Based on the presented essay and chronology, you can write short essay“The life and work of Kuprin (briefly).”
The variety of life circumstances and dramatic plots in the works of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin are explained primarily by the fact that his own life was very “action-packed” and difficult. It seems that when, in his review of Kipling’s story “The Bold Mariners,” he wrote about people who had gone through “the iron school of life, full of need, danger, grief and resentment,” he recalled what he himself had experienced.
Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was born on August 26, 1870 in the Penza province in the city of Narovchat. The father of the future writer, Ivan Ivanovich Kuprin, a commoner (an intellectual who did not belong to the nobility) held the modest position of secretary of a justice of the peace. Mother, Lyubov Alexandrovna, came from nobles, but impoverished ones.
When the boy was not even a year old, his father died of cholera, leaving the family without a livelihood. The widow and her son were forced to settle in the Moscow Widow's House. Lyubov Alexandrovna really wanted her Sashenka to become an officer, and when he was 6 years old, his mother sent him to the Razumovsky boarding school. He prepared the boys for admission to a secondary military educational institution.
Sasha stayed in this boarding house for about 4 years. In 1880, he began studying at the 2nd Moscow Military Gymnasium, which was later reorganized into a cadet corps. It must be said that discipline with sticks reigned within the walls of the military gymnasium. The situation was aggravated by searches, espionage, supervision, and bullying of older students over younger ones. This whole situation coarsened and corrupted the soul. But Sasha Kuprin, while in this nightmare, managed to maintain spiritual health, which later became a charming feature of his work.
In 1888, Alexander completed his studies in the corps and entered the 3rd Military Alexander School, which trained infantry officers. In August 1890, he graduated from it and went to serve in the 46th Dnieper Infantry Regiment. After this, the service began in remote and godforsaken corners of the Podolsk province.
In the fall of 1894, Kuprin retired and moved to Kyiv. By this time he had already written 4 published works: “The Last Debut”, “In the Dark”, “ Moonlit night", "Inquiry". In the same 1894, the young writer began to collaborate in the newspapers “Kievskoye Slovo”, “Life and Art”, and at the beginning of 1895 he became an employee of the newspaper “Kievlyanin”.
He wrote a number of essays and combined them into the book “Kyiv Types”. This work was published in 1896. The year 1897 became even more significant for the young writer, as the first collection of his stories, “Miniatures,” was published.
In 1896, Alexander Kuprin went on a trip to the factories and mines of the Donetsk basin. Burning with desire to thoroughly study real life, he gets a job at one of the factories as head of accounting for the forge and carpentry workshop. In this new capacity for him, the future famous writer worked for several months. During this time, material was collected not only for a number of essays, but also for the story “Moloch”.
In the second half of the 90s, Kuprin’s life began to resemble a kaleidoscope. He organized an athletic society in Kyiv in 1896 and began to actively engage in sports. In 1897, he became a manager of an estate located in Rivne district. Then he became interested in dental prosthetics and worked for some time as a dentist. In 1899 it adjoins the wandering theater group for several months.
In the same 1899, Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin arrived in Yalta. A significant event in his life took place in this city - a meeting with Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. After this, Kuprin visited Yalta in both 1900 and 1901. Chekhov introduced him to many writers and publishers. Among them was V. S. Mirolyubov, publisher of the St. Petersburg “Magazine for Everyone.” Mirolyubov invited Alexander Ivanovich to the position of secretary of the magazine. He agreed and in the fall of 1901 he moved to St. Petersburg.
In the city on the Neva there was a meeting with Maxim Gorky. Kuprin wrote about this man in his letter to Chekhov in 1902: “I met Gorky. There is something stern, ascetic, and preaching about him.” In 1903, the Gorky publishing house “Znanie” published the first volume of stories by Alexander Kuprin.
In 1905 something very happened an important event V creative life writer. Again, his story “The Duel” was published by the Znanie publishing house. It was followed by other works: “Dreams”, “Mechanical Justice”, “Wedding”, “River of Life”, “Gambrinus”, “Killer”, “Delusion”, “Resentment”. All of them were a response to the first Russian revolution and expressed dreams of freedom.
The revolution was followed by years of reaction. During this period, unclear philosophical and Political Views. At the same time, he created works that became worthy examples of Russian classical literature. Here you can name “Garnet Bracelet”, “Holy Lie”, “The Pit”, “Grunya”, “Starlings”, etc. During the same period, the idea of the novel “Junker” was born.
During the February Revolution, Alexander Ivanovich lived in Gatchina. He warmly welcomed the abdication of the sovereign and the transfer of power to the Provisional Government. But he perceived the October Revolution negatively. He published articles in bourgeois newspapers published until mid-1918 in which he questioned the reorganization of society on socialist principles. But gradually the tone of his articles began to change.
In the second half of 1918, Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin already spoke with respect about the activities of the Bolshevik Party. In one of his articles, he even called the Bolsheviks people of “crystal purity.” But apparently this man was characterized by doubts and hesitations. When Yudenich's troops occupied Gatchina in October 1919, the writer supported the new government, and then, together with the White Guard units, left Gatchina, fleeing the advancing Red Army.
He first moved to Finland, and in 1920 he moved to France. The author of “Olesya” and “The Duel” spent 17 years in a foreign land, living most of the time in Paris. It was a difficult but fruitful period. From the pen of the Russian classic came such collections of prose as “The Dome of St. Isaac Dolmatsky”, “The Wheel of Time”, “Elan”, as well as the novels “Zhaneta”, “Junker”.
Living abroad, Alexander Ivanovich had little idea of what was happening at home. He heard about the greatest achievements Soviet power, about great construction projects, about universal equality and brotherhood. All this aroused great interest in the classic’s soul. And every year he was drawn more and more to Russia.
In August 1936, the USSR Plenipotentiary Representative in France V.P. Potemkin asked Stalin to allow Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin to come to the USSR. This issue was considered by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and it was decided to allow the writer Kuprin to enter the country of the Soviets. On May 31, 1937, the great Russian classic returned to his homeland in the city of his youth - Moscow.
However, he came to Russia seriously ill. Alexander Ivanovich was weak, incapacitated and could not write. In the summer of 1937, an article “Moscow is native” appeared in the Izvestia newspaper. Under it was the signature of A.I. Kuprin. The article was laudatory, and every line of it breathed admiration for socialist achievements. However, it is assumed that the article was written by another person, a Moscow journalist assigned to the writer.
On the night of August 25, 1938, Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin died at the age of 67. The cause of death was esophageal cancer. The classic was buried in the city of Leningrad on the “Literary Bridge” of the Volkovsky Cemetery, not far from Turgenev’s grave. This is how I finished my life path a talented Russian writer who embodied in his works best traditions Russian literature of the 19th century century.
Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin was born on August 26 (September 7), 1870 in the city of Narovchat (Penza province) into a poor family of a minor official.
1871 was a difficult year in Kuprin’s biography - his father died, and the poor family moved to Moscow.
Training and the beginning of a creative path
At the age of six, Kuprin was sent to a class at the Moscow Orphan School, from which he left in 1880. After this, Alexander Ivanovich studied at the military academy, the Alexander Military School. The time of training is described in such works by Kuprin as: “At the Turning Point (Cadets)”, “Junkers”. “The Last Debut” is Kuprin’s first published story (1889).
From 1890 he was a second lieutenant in an infantry regiment. During the service, many essays, short stories, and novellas were published: “Inquiry,” “On a Moonlit Night,” “In the Dark.”
Creativity flourishes
Four years later, Kuprin retired. After this, the writer travels a lot around Russia, tries his hand at different professions. At this time, Alexander Ivanovich met Ivan Bunin, Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky.
Kuprin builds his stories of those times on life impressions gleaned during his travels.
Kuprin's short stories cover many topics: military, social, love. The story “The Duel” (1905) brought real success to Alexander Ivanovich. Love in Kuprin’s work is most vividly described in the story “Olesya” (1898), which was his first major and one of his most beloved works, and the story of unrequited love, “The Garnet Bracelet” (1910).
Alexander Kuprin also loved to write stories for children. For children's reading he wrote the works “Elephant”, “Starlings”, “White Poodle” and many others.
Emigration and last years of life
For Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, life and creativity are inseparable. Not accepting the policy of war communism, the writer emigrated to France. Even after emigration, in the biography of Alexander Kuprin, the writer’s fervor does not subside; he writes novellas, short stories, many articles and essays. Despite this, Kuprin lives in material need and yearns for his homeland. Only 17 years later he returns to Russia. At the same time, the writer’s last essay was published - the work “Native Moscow”.
After a serious illness, Kuprin died on August 25, 1938. The writer was buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery in Leningrad, next to the grave of Ivan Turgenev.
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Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin experienced many different events, whose life and work are filled with the drama of events that took place in the world. His works enjoy constant success among both ordinary readers and professionals. Many of Kuprin's stories represent a standard literary genre, for example, "Staff Captain Rybnikov". Such pearls from the treasury of Russian literature as “The Garnet Bracelet”, “Shulamith”, “Olesya”, “Listrigons”, “Junkers” - it’s impossible to list them all will remain popular for all times. And how do modern children read such stories as Alexander Kuprin in our the country has truly national recognition.
Childhood and youth
The future writer was born in August 1880 in a small town in the Penza province. His father, a minor official, died when his son was barely a year old. The mother could not raise little Alexander to his feet because there was not enough money, and she sent the boy to an orphan school.
The Alexander School in Moscow left more than just joyless memories. Here he spent his adolescence and youth, the first youthful hobbies, literary experiments appeared, and the main thing that Alexander Kuprin acquired at the school was friends.
Moscow was beautiful with its patriarchal morals, own myths, filled with local pride (the capital’s rights denied!), with its local celebrities and eccentrics. The appearance of the city was solid and unlike any other.
Start of writing
The studies gave Kuprin a fairly complete education: languages - Russian, French, German. Physics, mathematics, history, geography and literature (literature). The latter became his refuge for the rest of his life. Here, at the school, his first story was written - "The Last Debut", published in the heat of the moment in the "Russian Satirical Messenger".
Kuprin was incredibly happy, although he served time in a punishment cell for this act (publications without the knowledge of the head of the school were prohibited, but young Kuprin did not know this, so he was punished for ignorance of internal service).
Finally, the aspiring writer was released from school in the first category and assigned to serve on the southwestern border of Russia; remote provincial towns of this type were brilliantly described by him in the story “The Duel” and the story “The Wedding.”
Service at the country's borders
The material for excellent, painstakingly labored works, such as “Inquiry”, “Overnight” and others, was service on the border. However, the writer was seriously thinking about professional literary activity. It was necessary to gain sufficient experience for this, so it was published in provincial newspapers, and the story “In the Dark” was accepted into the magazine “Russian Wealth”.
In 1890, Kuprin, whose life and work seemed to be covered with moss in the outback, suddenly met Chekhov and Gorky. Both masters played a huge role in the fate of Kuprin. Naturally, Alexander valued them extremely highly, and their opinion even more, and he almost idolized Chekhov.
main topic
Not even one of the main ones, but the most main topic, which the writer Alexander Kuprin used throughout his life, is love. The heroes from the pages of his prose directly glow with this feeling, revealing themselves in their best manifestations, always brightly, always tragically, with very rare exceptions (for example, “The Lilac Bush” - this amazingly beautiful story is equal in power of impression to “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry, there everything ends well, except for the hero-officer’s feeling of shame for his little deception). For all real writers, like Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin, biography helps them create.
"Olesya"
The first fairly large and very significant work appears in 1898. This is the story "Olesya" - sad, without the slightest melodrama, bright, romantic. The heroine's natural world is spiritual harmony as opposed to a person from the big and cruel city. Naturalness, inner freedom, the simplicity of Olesya attracted the main character faster than a magnet to a piece of metal.
Cowardly kindness turned out to be stronger than spiritual wealth, almost destroying a pure and strong girl. Framework for social and cultural life are capable of changing even such a natural person as Olesya, but Kuprin did not allow this. Even a high feeling of love cannot revive those spiritual qualities that civilization has destroyed. That is why the meaning of this excellent story is high, because the life of Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin taught him to see both the light and the shadow that obscures it everywhere.
"Garnet bracelet"
In the most everyday reality, the writer searches for and finds people whose obsession with high feelings can rise above the prose of life, at least in dreams. Turning to the description of the “little man,” Alexander Kuprin, whose books are read avidly, truly works miracles. It turns out that Kuprin’s “little” man is characterized by subtle, all-encompassing love, hopeless and touching. This is a miracle, a wonderful gift. Even when dying, love revives life, defeating death. And music, music that regenerates the soul. It sounds in every line, moving from cold contemplation to a reverent feeling of the world.
Truly inevitably tragic. The chastity of the heroes has creative creative power. This is how heroes appear before readers, as Kuprin saw, whose life and work portrays them to us in a cruel world that is trying to break a fragile soul. At the same time, there is almost always a certain underestimation of himself by the hero, a disbelief in the right to own the woman whom his entire essence desires. Nevertheless, the complexity of the situations and the drama at the end do not leave the reader with a feeling of despondency; the characters that Alexander Kuprin brought before the reader, his entire books, are the very love of life, the very optimism. The bright feeling after reading it does not leave the reader for a long time.
"White Poodle"
This story, published in 1903, about an elderly organ grinder, a boy Seryozha and their faithful dog, the poodle Artaud, is called by the writer “The White Poodle.” Alexander Kuprin, as often happened, copied the plot from life. Guests often came to his dacha - artists, just passers-by, pilgrims, and the Kuprin family welcomed everyone, fed them lunch and gave them tea. Among the guests one day there appeared an old man with a barrel organ, a small acrobat and a white learned dog. So they told the writer about what happened to them.
A rich lady insisted on selling a poodle for her little, spoiled and capricious son; the artists, naturally, refused. The lady got angry and hired a man to steal the dog. And Seryozha risked his life, freeing his beloved Artoshka. This story seemed to Kuprin interesting topics that the story easily included two of his favorite themes - social inequality and selfless friendship, love for animals, caring for them. So often, instead of the writer, as Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin himself said, biography works instead of the writer.
"Duel"
While serving as a second lieutenant in the 46th Dnieper Infantry Regiment, Alexander Kuprin conceived and suffered the “Duel.” The city of Proskurov, where the service took place, is easily recognizable in this story. After retiring, the writer began to systematize his scattered notes. When the story was ready, Maxim Gorky highly praised it, calling it excellent and should make an indelible impression on all thinking and honest officers.
Also, A.V. Lunacharsky dedicated an article to “The Duel” in the magazine “Pravda” in the fall of 1905, where he welcomed this topic and this style of writing in every possible way, saying about the wonderful pages of Kuprin’s story, which are an eloquent appeal to the army, and every officer will certainly hear mine own voice undefiled honor.
Paustovsky called some scenes of “The Duel” the best in Russian literature. But there were also opposing assessments. Not all army men agreed with the reality that Alexander Kuprin revealed (life and work clearly say that he did not write a word of lies). However, Lieutenant General Geisman accused the writer of slander, hatred of the army, and even an attempt on the state system.
This is one of Kuprin’s most significant works about the history of the conflict between the young lieutenant Romashov and an officer of senior rank. Manners, drill, vulgarity of officer society - the whole background of the life of a provincial regiment Kuprin collided with a young romantic worldview and - again! - real, all-forgiving and all-encompassing, sacrificial love.
The first edition of the story was published with a dedication to Maxim Gorky, since everything that was most violent and daring in the story determined his influence. But Chekhov did not like the story, and its romantic mood - especially, which made Kuprin very puzzled and upset.
This fall, the writer spent time in Balaklava, Crimea, where he read Nazansky’s monologue from “The Duel” at a charity evening. Balaklava is a city of military men, and there were many of them in the hall at that moment. A huge scandal broke out, which the sailor, Lieutenant P.P. Schmidt, helped to extinguish, a month later he became the head of the The writer saw with his own eyes the ruthless reprisal of government troops against the rebels and described these events, sending correspondence to St. Petersburg, to the newspaper " New life". For this, Kuprin was expelled from Balaklava in forty-eight hours. But the writer managed to save several sailors from Ochakov from persecution. Later they wrote about this uprising wonderful stories: “Caterpillar”, “Giants”, the wonderful “Gambrinus”.
Writer's family
Kuprin's first wife was Maria Karlovna Davydova, whom he married in 1902 and received a divorce in 1909. She was a highly educated lady, the daughter of a famous cellist and magazine publisher. By her next marriage she became the wife of a prominent statesman Nikolai Jordansky-Negorev. Maria Karlovna left a book of memories about Kuprin - “Years of Youth”.
They still have joint daughter- Lydia Aleksandrovna Kuprina, who died early, in 1924, giving the writer a grandson, Alexei. Alexandra Ivanovich and his grandson did not leave any other offspring, the Kuprin family was interrupted.
The second wife, his muse and guardian angel, is Elizaveta Moritsevna Heinrich, who married the writer in 1909. She was the daughter of a photographer and the sister of an actress. Elizaveta Moritsevna worked all her life, which was not typical for that time, and was a nurse. I couldn’t survive the siege of Leningrad.
They had a daughter, Ksenia Alexandrovna, beautiful and smart, a favorite not only of the whole family, but also of people who communicated with her at least a little. She worked at the Fashion House for the then famous Paul Poiret, and was a model and actress. In 1958 she returned from France to the USSR. She also wrote the memoirs “Kuprin is my father.” She played at the Moscow Pushkin Theater. One-year-old Ksenia had a sister, Zinaida, but in 1912 she died of pneumonia.
Pre-war, war and post-war years
Throughout 1909, Kuprin worked hard - writing a story with a risky theme for our times. The writer decided to show life from the inside brothel somewhere in the province. He called the story "The Pit". It took a long time to write. In the same year, he was awarded the Pushkin Prize, as was Ivan Bunin. This was already official recognition from the Academy of Sciences.
In 1911, Kuprin had to sell the publishing rights to Complete collection essays. Having received a hundred thousand rubles in royalties from the publisher, already in 1915 the writer wrote that he was mired in debt. Then the story “The Garnet Bracelet,” which Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin wrote so reverently, and the stories “Telegraph Operator” and “Holy Lie” were published - subtle, lyrical, sad works. They clearly showed that the author’s soul was not mired in wealth, that he was still ready to sympathize, love and condole.
In 1914, Kuprin volunteered to go to war, again as a lieutenant. He served in Finland, but not for long: he was declared unfit for service for health reasons. He returned home, and at home there was an infirmary: Elizaveta Moritsevna and daughter Ksenia were nursing the wounded... Thus the years of war passed. Kuprin did not understand and did not accept the revolution of 1917. Didn't like Lenin. After the defeat of the white movement in 1920, the Kuprins left Russia.
Twenty years of Kuprin’s life in France showed how difficult it is for a Russian person to adapt abroad. There were no earnings. The most famous works writers were translated into French, but new ones were not written. Commercial enterprises especially if they didn’t succeed. The main thing was that sadness ate my soul. Gone are youth, health, strength, hopes... It is this nostalgia that permeates the only thing major work, written by Alexander Ivanovich far from Russia, is the novel “Junker”. These turned out to be almost documentary memories of a military school, warm, sad, but with the same kind and gentle Kuprin humor. He really, really wanted to return to his homeland.
Home!
Kuprin’s dream of returning to Russia came true too late. A terminally ill writer returned home to die. The meeting was incredibly warm - he was loved so much that almost all of Moscow decided to see him. Alexander Ivanovich's joy was immeasurable. Eyewitnesses testify that he often cried, he was touched by everything: the children, the very smell of his homeland, and especially the attention and love of those around him. The writer, despite his illness, published: an essay about the capital “Native Moscow”, then memoirs about Gorky (with huge omissions, since in exile Kuprin did not favor Gorky for his support and complicity with the “regime of horror and slavery”).
On New Year's Eve 1937, the Kuprins moved to Leningrad and settled there, surrounded by care and attention. In June 1938, we visited our dear Gatchina, where lilacs once bloomed so magnificently. They gave up both their old dacha and the seventy thousand compensation for it and settled with a friend, the widow of a famous architect. Kuprin walked through the beautiful garden, enjoying the peace and quiet joy.
Nevertheless, the disease was getting worse, the diagnosis was terrible - esophageal cancer. In Leningrad, after returning from Gatchina, the council decided to operate on Kuprin. Temporarily he felt better, but the doctors warned that, in principle, there was nothing to hope for. Kuprin was dying. IN last days he had everything possible - the best doctors, excellent care. But such an extension of life cannot last forever.
Life is eternal
Literary scholars, critics, and memoirists have written a living portrait of a wonderful, truly Russian writer who continued the best classical traditions a brilliant follower of L.N. Tolstoy. Alexander Kuprin, whose quotes have been in circulation for a century, wrote more than a hundred works of various genres. He was truthful, sincere, with a large share of life specificity in every word, he wrote only about what he himself experienced, saw, and felt.
Kuprin addressed the widest audience; his reader does not depend on gender or age, everyone will find their own treasured in his lines. Humanism, persistent love of life, flexible, vivid descriptions, and exceptionally rich language help Kuprin’s works remain to this day among the most read. His works have been filmed, dramatized and translated into many languages of the world.
Alexander Ivanovich Kuprin
(1870 - 1938)
Born on August 27, 1870 in the small town of Narovchat, in the Penza province, in the family of a minor official. The writer did not know his father, because he died a year after the birth of his son, from cholera. His mother came from the ancient princely family of the Kulanchakovs. After her husband's death, she moved to a widow's house in Moscow. Only thanks to this, Kuprin’s childhood years were spent close to his mother, whom he, by the way, literally idolized. And there really was something to admire.
His mother had a strong, even somewhat tyrannical character. She was a proud princess, had excellent taste and keen powers of observation. Unfortunately, financial difficulties forced her to send the young writer to the Moscow Razumovsky boarding school (orphanage) when he was 6 years old.
After graduating from the boarding school, he entered the Second Moscow Military Gymnasium, which was later renamed the Cadet Corps. After graduation, Kuprin continued his education at the Third Alexander Junker School in Moscow. All this during the 1880-90s. The writer reflected his military youth in the story “At the Turning Point (Cadets)” and in the novel “Junkers”. He left school with the rank of second lieutenant.
Already, while at school, Kuprin felt a craving for literature; his first attempts were poems that remained unpublished. The first work of Alexander Kuprin that the world saw was the story “The Last Debut”, published in the magazine “Russian Satirical List” in 1889. The story turned out to be not very successful, and Kuprin himself did not take writing very seriously.
After graduating from college in 1890, the writer was enrolled in an infantry regiment. Served for four years. Military career gave a lot of material for Kuprin’s writing. After his resignation in 1994, he moved to Kyiv. The writer did not have a regular profession and was still very young. He traveled a lot around the country, held different positions and tried many professions. This was reflected in his work.
In the 1890s, he published the essay “Yuzovsky Plant” and the story “Moloch”, the stories “Wilderness”, “Werewolf”, the stories “Olesya” and “Kat” (“Army Ensign”).
During these years, Kuprin met Bunin, Chekhov and Gorky. In 1901 he moved to St. Petersburg, began working as a secretary of the “Magazine for Everyone,” married M. Davydova, and had a daughter, Lydia. Kuprin's stories appeared in St. Petersburg magazines: “Swamp” (1902); "Horse Thieves" (1903); "White Poodle" (1904). In 1905, his most significant work was published - the story "The Duel", which had big success. The writer’s performances reading individual chapters of “The Duel” became an event in the cultural life of the capital. His works of this time were very well-behaved: the essay “Events in Sevastopol” (1905), the stories “Staff Captain Rybnikov” (1906), “River of Life”, “Gambrinus” (1907). In 1907, he married his second wife, sister of mercy E. Heinrich, and had a daughter, Ksenia.
Kuprin's work in the years between the two revolutions resisted the decadent mood of those years: the cycle of essays "Listrigons" (1907 - 11), stories about animals, the stories "Shulamith", "Pomegranate Bracelet" (1911). His prose became a notable phenomenon of Russian literature at the beginning of the century.
Kuprin did not accept the revolution, his relationship with M. Gorky cooled. The writer's creativity was constantly hampered by financial troubles and family troubles. In 1907, Kuprin again took up journalism to pay off his debts and support his family.
In the fall of 1919, while in Gatchina, cut off from Petrograd by Yudenich's troops, he emigrated abroad. The seventeen years that the writer spent in Paris did not bear much literary fruit. Constant material need and homesickness led him to the decision to return to Russia. In the spring of 1937, the seriously ill Kuprin returned to his homeland, warmly received by his admirers. Published the essay “Native Moscow”. However, the new creative plans were not destined to come true. Died on the night of August 25, 1938 after serious illness(tongue cancer).
In addition to Kuprin's biography, also pay attention to other works.
