Doctor Smidovich and writer Veresaev. Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich Other books on similar topics

The head of the writer's house-museum talks about the unknown Veresaev Victoria Tkach.

Smidovichi black and white

In fact, he is not Veresaev, but Smidovich, from a family of Polish nobles. According to family legend, once upon a time the ancestors of the Smidovichs saved the life of the Polish king while hunting, for which they received the title of nobility, and in honor of that event, an image of a hunting horn appeared in the family coat of arms.

The name Vikenty, which few of us can write without a mistake the first time, and even the Word program invariably underlines it in red, is also a family name, Polish.

Veresaev's father was also called Vikenty. The son of Veresaev’s great-nephew, Lev Vladimirovich Razumovsky, was also named Vikenty.
Veresaev’s family name was Vitya, and his father’s name was Vitsya, which the writer himself writes about with great gusto in his memoirs of childhood.

In the 1830s, after the uprising that occurred in Poland, the Smidovichs moved first to Ukraine, then to Tula.

Veresaev is a character in one of the stories of the then popular writer Pyotr Gnedich. Young Vikenty Smidovich liked him so much that he chose this surname as his literary pseudonym, and went down in history under it.

According to the memoirs of Vikenty Vikentyevich, his father conventionally divided the large Smidovich family into black and white.

The Black Smidovichs had an estate in the village of Zybino in what is now the Yasnogorsk region with a wonderful manor house with columns and a large park, where Veresaev loved to come on vacation.

The Black Smidovichs differed not so much in appearance, how much in character. They seemed more energetic, impulsive, self-confident, and loved life very much.

It is no coincidence that many of them later became famous revolutionaries. For example, Pyotr Germogenovich Smidovich, who became the first Soviet mayor of Moscow. By the way, in the Tula underground he had a corresponding nickname - Uncle Black.

Peter Smidovich.

Pyotr Germogenovich's wife was Sofya Nikolaevna Lunacharskaya (Chernosvitova) - from a family of Venev nobles. It is in her honor that one of the streets of Tula is named - st. Smidovich.

But the white Smidovichs are more romantic, indecisive, and more difficult to get along with people. Veresaev himself wrote that he and his sisters were more inclined to contemplation and reflection than to action. At one time he came under the influence of the Black Smidovichs, who influenced the formation of his character.

Throughout the war on the front line

The Smidovichs are a medical dynasty. Father Vikenty Ignatievich is the founder of the Tula City Hospital and Sanitary Commission, one of the founders of the Society of Tula Doctors. Mother Elizaveta Pavlovna is the organizer of the first kindergarten in Tula and in Russia.

But Veresaev considered the profession of a doctor as a step towards practicing literary activity. When he entered the medical faculty of Dorpat University, he later honestly wrote in his autobiography: “My dream was to become a writer; and for this it seemed necessary knowledge biological side of man, his physiology and pathology.” Although he also gained great fame as a doctor.

Soon after graduating from university, Veresaev left for Yuzovka, where a cholera epidemic was raging. And there is a review from one of the mine owners that “thanks to the efforts of Dr. Smidovich, the cholera epidemic began to decline.”

The monument to Veresaev in Tula was erected in 1958.

His Notes from a Doctor, published in 1901 and condemning human experiments, caused a huge resonance in society. Soon after this, Tolstoy invited Veresaev to become his attending physician, but Vikenty Vikentyevich considered that he did not have the right to treat such a brilliant person.

With the beginning Russo-Japanese War Veresaev ended up in the Tambov hospital, and then on the front line as a doctor. He was awarded the Order of St. Anne and the Order of St. Stanislaus, II degree.

Vikenty Veresaev during the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

During World War I, he was a doctor at a disinfection hospital in Kolomna. And he left Moscow for Grazhdanskaya and was engaged in medical activities in Koktebel. Where, by the way, he met the impoverished Maximilian Voloshin and provided him with significant support.

Writer from Tula Vikenty Veresaev, poet, artist Maximilian Voloshin and landscape artist Konstantin Bogaevsky.

Homer's interlocutor

Veresaev is considered the author of two literary genres- non-fictional stories and chronicle novels. In the latter, he published two large studies - “Pushkin in Life” and “Gogol in Life”, based only on the memories of his contemporaries.

Veresaev believed that any work is subjective, so he collected a collection of memoirs about two, from his point of view, the main writers of Russia, and readers themselves had to form an idea about Pushkin, and then about Gogol as a writer and person. Therefore, he was considered a psychologist of Pushkin’s creativity.

Veresaev is also known for his translations into modern Russian of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. In general, he was very attracted to solar culture Ancient Greece. And he wrote in his diaries that he talked with Homer as with his contemporary.

Classics and contemporaries

When in 1901 Veresaev was expelled from St. Petersburg to Tula under police supervision for revolutionary propaganda, he finally visited Yasnaya Polyana at Tolstoy's. But not as a doctor, but as a guest young writer.

Lev Tolstoy.

In his memoirs, he said that he had to wait a long time in the reception room, and during the meeting he felt like a student who was being examined in questions of philosophy and worldview.

One of the first questions Tolstoy asked: do you have children? And, having heard a negative answer, according to Veresaev’s recollections, he seemed to look down and inwardly distanced himself. Veresaev left with a feeling of misunderstanding.

Over time, according to Veresaev, all the dregs of sensations and emotions settled, and he was able to see the snowy peak, which then shone in front of him in all its splendor.

Veresaev met another fellow countryman, Ivan Bunin, in 1911 in Moscow. But these relations could not be called friendly.

Ivan Bunin.

Veresaev certainly paid tribute to Bunin as a writer, but the human qualities of the future Nobel laureate he didn’t like it at all - it’s strange to see in Bunin a combination of “a completely lousy person with an unshakably honest and demanding artist.”

Warmer relations developed with Chekhov. They communicated especially closely after 1902, when Veresaev, after being deported to Tula, was given the opportunity to leave the city and went to Yalta.

Anton Chekhov.

The local community honored him as the author of the “Doctor's Notes” that excited the whole of Russia. Veresaev’s personal communication with Chekhov continued in active correspondence, where medical issues were more touched upon. Chekhov consulted with Veresaev regarding his health. And he wrote that Veresaev is the only doctor who can clearly and directly speak about the state of affairs.

Veresaev also maintained close relations with another famous writer-doctor, Mikhail Bulgakov.

It is known, for example, that Vikenty Vikentievich twice provided financial assistance to the author of The White Guard. In 1925, when Bulgakov fell into disgrace, Veresaev, urging him to accept the loan, wrote:

“Understand, I’m not doing this for you personally, but wanting to preserve at least a little of the great artistic power of which you are the bearer. In view of the persecution that is now being waged against you, you will be pleased to know that Gorky (I had a letter from him in the summer) noticed you very much and appreciates you.”

Michael Bulgakov.

Bulgakov himself was also very respectful of Veresaev. It is not surprising that this warm relationship eventually resulted in an attempt to jointly write a play about last days Pushkin. But here the classics disagreed. Veresaev wanted to show Pushkin from the point of view historical truth, and Bulgakov insisted on being more literary. The play was eventually completed by Bulgakov alone.

Poster

The Veresaev House-Museum invites you to the VI Veresaev Literary and Local Lore Readings, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the writer, translator, Pushkin scholar, public figure. More details - .

Vikenty Veresaev is a writer and doctor. January 18th, 2016

On January 16 (4), 1867, Vikenty Veresaev (Smidovich) was born - a writer who became a doctor in order to expand his social circle and find interesting characters. When he got used to the medical profession, he wrote “Notes of a Doctor,” which caused a huge scandal and led to changes in legislation in Russia and European countries.

Vikenty Smidovich, the son of a Tula doctor, from childhood felt the presence of some kind of dark force. Many years later, he recalled: “I noticed a long time ago that if you say: “I’ll probably go for a walk tomorrow,” then something will certainly interfere: either it will rain, or you’ll accidentally play a prank, and mom won’t let you in. And so it is always when you say “probably.” An invisible evil force listens carefully to us and, to spite us, does everything the opposite.” This feeling did not leave Smidovich until last breath. Not believing in the supernatural, he considered this force to reside within us and called it “the feeling of dependence.” Since childhood, he tried to deceive her.

V.V. Veresaev (1867-1945) in 1913, when he was one of the most fashionable Russian writers.

At the gymnasium, Vitya Smidovich showed excellent memory and ability for ancient languages. But he felt that the evil force would not simply let him into literature or humanities. And after graduating from the university with a candidate of historical sciences, he did not become a writer, but decided to study to become a doctor. He explained this maneuver to himself by saying that “the specialty of a doctor made it possible to get close to people of the most diverse strata and ways; This was especially necessary for me, since I have a closed character.” At the Faculty of Medicine, Smidovich was one of the first students: he studied diligently and did not tremble in anatomy. During the cholera epidemic of 1892, he was entrusted with managing a barracks at the Voznesensky mine, now within the city of Donetsk. In other places, doctors were beaten then, sometimes to death, but the miners trusted the student.

Cholera gave up, and Smidovich was about to leave when the orderly Stepan, taken from the miners, ran into the barracks “... torn to pieces, bloodied. He said that drunken miners had beaten him because he had “contacted the doctors” and that they were coming here in droves to kill me. There was nowhere to run." Now in this place there is Vodolechebnaya Street of Donetsk, and houses rise all around. And then the bare steppe stretched to the horizon - you couldn’t hide. “We sat with Stepan waiting for the crowd. During this time, many bitter and difficult things changed my mind. The miners didn’t come: they stopped on the way in an oncoming bus and forgot about us.”

The evil fate has retreated. Our hero concluded that he had some kind of mission ahead of him. A new life must be started under a new name: this is how the pseudonym Veresaev arose. An as yet untouched topic was chosen as the mission - the tragic situation in which the doctor is placed by his very profession: “I will write about what I experienced while getting acquainted with medicine, what I expected from it, and what it gave me... I will try to write everything , not hiding anything, and I will try to write sincerely.” The genre is the most innovative - frank artistic reasoning with quotes, historical examples and stories from their own and others’ practice. Subsequently, “The Gulag Archipelago” was written in this way.

Vikenty Vikentyevich Veresaev (Smidovich) in his office. Moscow, 1930s.
Photo: Sergey Krasinsky.

The book begins with the fact that students are taught poorly, and young doctors get their hands on it at the cost of the health of their patients. Veresaev decided to tell how he personally killed two patients - he prescribed the old plasterer according to an unverified new method a lethal dose of digitalis, and clumsily gave the little girl the first and last tracheotomy of her life. There is no other way in medicine: it goes “through mountains of corpses.” Moreover, through experiments on patients. Here Veresaev expertly gives many examples.

Professor Kolomnin in 1886 decided to try pain relief by injecting cocaine into the rectum. The patient died from poisoning. Kolomnin “came home, locked himself in his office and shot himself.” The safe dose of cocaine was still unknown, it turned out to be 25 times less than that, which Kolomnin introduced.

But not all doctors are so scrupulous. Others deliberately experiment on patients. Dr. Voss at the Kalinkinsky hospital decided to make sure that syphilis is transmitted through breast milk. He subcutaneously injected a young prostitute hospitalized with urethritis with a whole syringe of syphilitic milk. The girl got sick. Foss insisted that his victims themselves gave their consent to the experiment. But did that girl know what she agreed to?

On the other hand, society treats doctors disgracefully. So the entrepreneur turned to the editor “with a request to “print” in the newspaper a doctor who filed a lawsuit against this acquaintance for non-payment of fees.
- Why didn’t you pay him? - asked the newspaper employee.
- Yes, so, you know, the holidays are coming, we need to rent a dacha, summer suits for the children, well, all that stuff...
A doctor must be a selfless devotee - well, we, mere mortals, will rent our own dachas at his expense and have fun on holidays.”

Meanwhile, doctors are dying at work. “37% of Russian doctors in general, and about 60% of zemstvo doctors in particular, die from infectious diseases.” Out of ten deceased doctors aged 25 to 35, one commits suicide. The reason is that doctors live poorly - the majority receive no more than 1,000 rubles a year. “There are few intelligent professions whose work would be worse rewarded.” But patients have an even worse life. Veresaev knew from personal experience that in factories “the worker is given the condition not to beg around the city, a female worker is forced to give herself to the master, to be a prostitute, for the mere right to have a job.” Doctors are unable to change this situation; the whole society needs to be reorganized.

The book was published in 1901 and became a sensation in Russia and throughout Europe. The press attacked Veresaev with accusations of lying. Medical students offered their professors a discussion with the author at the Higher Women's Courses. The line for tickets stretched for a block until those interested broke down the doors, so the debate had to be moved to a more spacious hall at the conservatory.
The author’s position turned out to be invulnerable: after all, the results of experiments on people were published in scientific journals. The discussion led to experiments on infecting volunteers being banned in Russia and other civilized countries.

The author came under police surveillance for allegedly donating his fees to the Social Democrats for the revolution. Even if so, he did not give everything. Veresaev became rich, and for a while he believed that evil rock left him. In the fall of 1918, when Moscow became hungry, he went to the Crimea, to his Koktebel dacha, to wait out difficult times in the grain-growing South. This was not the case: Crimea passed from hand to hand and periodically found itself under complete blockade. Fuel, electricity, hay, food and manufactured goods disappeared. Veresaev supported himself by practicing medicine, charging a fee for eggs and vegetables. At 50, he visited patients on a bicycle, wearing only a nightgown, a gift from Ilya Ehrenburg.

He began to write the novel “At a Dead End” about what was happening in Crimea - the first novel by a major Russian author about civil war. News of this work reached the Politburo. The author was invited to the Kremlin for festive evening January 1, 1923, read selected places. Veresaev described the atrocities of the Whites and Reds. The reading ended at the chapter in which the positive heroine says to her former communist friend:
“When you are overthrown, when you even yourself perish on the spot from your mediocrity and senseless cruelty, - and then... everything will be forgiven you! Do whatever you want, get rid of yourself until you completely lose your human semblance - everything will be forgiven! And they won’t even want to believe anything... Where, where is the justice!”

Kamenev said that everything was slander against the Cheka and hinted that it was time to introduce the author to this organization better. Stalin, having a reputation as a connoisseur of literature, said that it was inconvenient for a state publishing house to publish such a thing, but overall the book was not bad. Dzerzhinsky was the last to speak: “Veresaev... very accurately, truthfully and objectively draws both the intelligentsia that went with us and the one that went against us. As for the reproach that he allegedly slandered the Cheka, then, comrades, it has happened between us!

Wounded in the battle of Mukden, 1905.
"All the wounded unanimously declared that it was not so much the wounds that were terrible, but the transportation in these hellish gigs and heated vehicles. Patients with abdominal wounds died from them like flies. Happy was the one wounded in the stomach who spent three or four days on the battlefield unpicked: he lay there helpless and lonely, thirsty and cold, he could be grabbed every minutedrive out packs of hungry dogs, but he had the peace he needed so much; when he was picked up, the abdominal wounds had already stuck together to a certain extent, and he was out of danger.

Violating the direct orders of their superiors, the doctors of the Mukden barracks, at their own risk, separated part of the barracks for the cavitary wounded and did not evacuate them. The result was amazing: all of them, twenty-four people, recovered, only one received limited peritonitis, one got purulent pleurisy, and both recovered."

From the notes of V.V. Veresaev "In the Japanese War". The author served in the Mukden barracks, where a field hospital was set up.
Photo: Karl Bulla.

At dinner, Dzerzhinsky sat next to Veresaev and completely charmed him. He said that the massacre that Pyatakov, Zemlyachka and Bela Kun carried out in Crimea was a mistake, an excess and an abuse of authority. I was interested in creative plans. Veresaev said that he was going to write about Pushkin - it would be completely new genre: not a single word from the author, only the impressions and memories of the people around the poet. Pushkin through the eyes of others. The reaction of Stalin and Felix Edmundovich to this plan looked encouraging.

But evil fate showed Veresaev its new feature: when you take a historical figure as your hero, the same misfortunes that happened to him begin to happen to you. “Pushkin in Life” begins with the poet’s arrival to the Tsar from exile. Nicholas I assures Pushkin of his full support and is going to become his censor, and a very benevolent one at that. In response, Alexander Sergeevich squeezes out of himself something loyal, feeling “meanness in every member,” and the censorship is pinching his new and old things more and more. The same thing began to happen to Veresaev. Even the novel “At a Dead End” was mercilessly torn to pieces, responding with impudent laughter to the words “The Politburo approved.”

Understanding from the plot of “Pushkin” how it would end, Veresaev again deceived evil fate and stopped composing. He decided to do what he had dreamed of back in the history department - to translate Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. 8,000 lines of ancient Greek text were translated in just 4 years. Veresaev died the day he finished editing his Iliad. Experts say that this is the best translation of Homer into a modern European language.

A sanitary tram that transported the wounded from the reception points of the Moscow railway junction, where Veresaev served as a military doctor, to the Lefortovo hospital. The conductor of the tram was another writer - young Konstantin Paustovsky.

“Sometimes you seriously begin to believe in the “prana” of yogis and in the fact that people are able to pour the excess of this vital force - prana - into other people with their passionate desire.During the imperialist war, I had two sisters in the hospital with a huge reserve of this vitality and genuine love for every patient, an ardent desire to save him. And what? Almost no patient died while on duty! I remember one incident. The patient had gas gangrene of the leg; subcutaneous infusions were given and disarticulation of the hip joint was performed. I approached: he was dying. I say: “He will die in ten minutes. Cover him.” I was quite experienced in this. But - one of the mentioned sisters was with him. And he began to warm up and came to life. There is much we still don’t know about the human body.”
V.V. Veresaev. "Notes for yourself."

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution

higher professional education

NATIONAL NUCLEAR RESEARCH UNIVERSITY "MEPhI"

OBNINSK INSTITUTE OF ATOMIC ENERGY

Faculty of Medicine

Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health

Abstract on the subject " History of medicine»

« V.V. Veresaev - a doctor or a writer?»

Completed:

student gr. LD2-S14A

Kulagina E.A.

Checked:

teacher

Katkova A.I.

Obninsk, 2015

V.V. Smidovich (he chose the pseudonym Veresaev in 1892) was born on January 4, 1867 in the city of Tula. Died June 3, 1945. Vikenty Vikentievich went down in history primarily as a writer, the author of the famous “Notes of a Doctor”, but his achievements in the field of medicine and social activities first half of the twentieth century. In his “Memoirs,” the writer explains his choice by “attraction to exact sciences and real knowledge,” and most importantly, by the desire to become a writer. In his opinion, a writer should know a person well both in health and during illness. During his studies, he worked in clinics with great diligence and enthusiasm and showed great interest in scientific work. Peru Veresaeva owns two scientific works, which were published in the medical press and aroused the interest of the medical community: “To simplify the method of quantitative determination of uric acid according to Guycraft” and “On the influence of Wildungen water on metabolism (1893).

During the cholera epidemic of 1892, Veresaev went to fight the disease in the Donetsk basin, where he ran a cholera barracks near Yuzovka for two months.

In 1894 he graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Dorpat and began medical work in Tula. He soon moved to St. Petersburg, where in 1896–1901 he worked as a resident and head of the library at the City Barracks Hospital in memory of S.P. Botkin. During the First World War he served as a military doctor. Since 1921 he lived in Moscow.

During the Russo-Japanese War, he was mobilized to the front as a junior resident in one of the regimental hospitals, where he not only practiced medicine on the front line, but also fulfilled the civic duty of a writer - to be an honest and impartial witness of what was happening.

A graduate of the Faculty of Medicine, he remains in history as a prose writer, literary critic, and poet-translator. "A Doctor's Notes" is an autobiography written in the first person.

“Notes” went through twelve editions during the author’s lifetime alone and caused a wave of critical discussions, both in the newspaper “Vrach” and in secular circles. Veresaev, working on the Notes, followed the example of Pirogov, whom he deeply respected, whose main rule was not to hide anything from his students, to openly tell the public about his medical activities and its results, as well as about his medical errors. The medical community for the most part did not approve of “Notes of Doctor Veresaev.” Range of issues considered. Not only angry articles were published, but also entire books of refutation. Doctors feared that the general public, after reading the revelations of their colleague, would turn against medicine as a science in general and doctors in particular.

Starting from entering the medical faculty, and especially in the clinic, the hero of “Notes” faced questions regarding medical ethics that were not covered by classical medical ethics (of that time). In the story “Notes of a Doctor,” Vikenty Veresaev raises a whole layer of moral and ethical problems faced by a young doctor who not only thinks, but is also able to sympathize with the patient.

Veresaev describes in detail how, under the guidance of teacher-doctors, he acquired practical skills. Through failure, the patient's suffering, the danger of complications - the author learned intubation, tracheotomy, etc. The question arises as follows: if you think about every patient, then training young doctors will become impossible. From a doctor’s point of view, you can accept: “It doesn’t matter, nothing can be done,” but it’s worth imagining yourself as a patient. The way out of this situation is surgical practice in the anatomical theater. However, the transition from inanimate to living matter is complicated by the fear serious mistakes. Thus, the surgeon will gain experience at the expense of the health and life of his own kind. Vivisection, condemned by society in Veresaev's time, allows one to avoid human casualties! “Don’t we have,” he writes, “creatures that should have less value in our eyes, and on whom we would be allowed to use our first attempts?”

On the moral right of a doctor to innovation, a clinical experiment. The work, which condemned medical experiments on people, also revealed the moral position of the writer, who opposed any experiments on people, including social experiments, no matter who carried them out - bureaucrats or revolutionaries. The resonance was so strong that the emperor himself ordered measures to be taken and medical experiments on people stopped. At the beginning of the independent medical practice of the hero of “Notes,” a newspaper article about a new approach to the treatment of malaria came across his eye. A patient who comes to him in serious condition turns out to be suitable for testing the method described in the article. However, the patient dies and it is impossible to accurately determine the cause that led to death. The hero becomes disillusioned with new, untested methods and makes a promise to himself “from now on, I will only use those remedies that have definitely been tested and do not threaten my patients with any harm.” He wants confidence that the treatment is safe and truly better than the old one. In particular, Veresaev proposes an experimental design, now called “double-blind placebo control” (the recognized standard of clinical experimentation).

As a result, the narrator comes to the conclusion that, “using only what has been tested,” medicine could not achieve anything, and even experiments on animals would be nothing more than speculative research. Where is the exit? Where is the limit of what is acceptable? To abandon the old requires no less audacity than to introduce the new. Continuing the theme of clinical experiments, Veresaev gives many descriptions of acute experiments, mainly on hopeless patients. This is an artificial inoculation of syphilis, tuberculosis, and cancer in hopelessly ill patients in order to determine the mechanism of transmission of the disease. It is significant for medical ethics that these experiments continued for years, independently in different clinics by different doctors. the result was already known, and the doctors, being limited in their actions only by conscience and not by law, continued the “research”. The legal framework for the ethics of medical experiments appeared only after the Second World War.

One of the most pressing issues for Veresaev is the helplessness of a doctor in the early stages of his independent medical practice. Thinking about this topic, he comes to the conclusion that the student studies a lot of theoretical subjects, which he, of course, needs to know, but he has little practice during his years at the university. Therefore, the lack of professional skills makes him so helpless when he takes the path of independent work and comes face to face with a sick person. Veresaev comes to the conclusion: students need to be provided with greater opportunities for practical training in the clinic and clinic. Only under such conditions there will be no serious problem of the “first operation”, when a young doctor independently provides surgical care for the first time outside the walls of the clinic.

The book devotes considerable space to the issue of medical errors. V.V. Veresaev writes about surgery: “Surgery is an art, and, as such, it most of all requires creativity and least of all is reconciled with a template. Where there is a pattern, there are no mistakes; where there is creativity, there is a possibility of error every minute. It is through a long process of such mistakes and blunders that a master is developed, and this path again lies through “mountains of corpses.” He gives examples of how a doctor’s inexperience and carelessness lead to tragic consequences. “Yes, mistakes are possible in any specialty,” says V.V. Veresaev, “but nowhere are they more noticeable than in medicine, where you are dealing with a person, and therefore you must do everything in the power of a doctor and medicine to ensure that there are as few mistakes as possible.” However, while warning doctors against making mistakes, he at the same time devotes many pages to defending those who have become victims of serious charges simply because they were unable to cure the patient.

V.V. Veresaev also raises the question of medical confidentiality: “The doctor is obliged to keep the secret entrusted to him by the patient,” he writes, “but there is one significant limitation to this: if maintaining the secret threatens harm to society or those around the patient, then the doctor not only can, but must also break the secret . However, in each such case, he must be able to give both before the patient and before his own conscience an accurate and comprehensive answer on what basis he violated the secret entrusted to him by the patient.”

Veresaev’s thoughts on the medicine of the future are optimistic: “In the future, everyone will be able to follow all hygiene requirements and everyone who is sick will receive full opportunity take advantage of all the achievements of science." But even in this wonderful future, according to V.V. Veresaev, the process of physical development will proceed extremely one-sidedly: the intellect will develop, but physically the person will regress; he will increasingly lose the positive qualities inherited from nature. In order to prevent this from happening, the writer considers it necessary for not only the brain, but also the human muscles to develop more and more.

Where is the way out of these contradictions? To this question V.V. Veresaev answers: if a doctor is not a medical official, but a genuine doctor, he must first of all fight to eliminate those conditions that make his activity meaningless and fruitless.

Bibliography

1. Veresaev V.V. - M.: Pravda, 1980.- 400 p.

2. Veresaev V.V. Complete collection works: in 16 volumes / V.V. Veresaev. - M.: Nedra, 1929.

3. Brovman G. A. V. Veresaev: Life and creativity. - M.: Soviet writer, 1959.

4. Yu. Fokht-Babushkin. About Veresaev // V.V. Veresaev Tales and stories. - M.: “Fiction”, 1987.

5. Russian writers. 1800 - 1917: Biographical. Dictionary. | redol. : P.A. Nikolaev (chief editor) and others - M.: Sov. Encyclopedia, 1989 - series of biographical dictionaries, pp. 28 - 30

The Russian writer Veresaev Vikenty Vikentyevich (Smidovich) occupies a special place in the galaxy of domestic prose writers. Today he is lost against the background of his outstanding contemporaries L. N. Tolstoy, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. Chekhov, M. Gorky, I. Bunin, M. Sholokhov, but he has his own style, his highest services to Russian literature and a number of excellent essays.

Family and childhood

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich, whose biography was associated with two callings: a doctor and a writer, was born on January 4, 1867 in Tula. The family of the future writer had a lot of mixed nationalities. The mother’s parents were a Mirgorod Ukrainian and a Greek; on the paternal side there were Germans and Poles. The writer's family surname, Smidovich, belonged to the ancient Polish noble family. His father was a doctor, he founded the first city hospital in Tula, initiated the creation of a sanitary commission in the city, and stood at the origins of the Tula Society of Doctors. Vincent's mother was a highly educated noblewoman, she was the first in the city to open a kindergarten, and then primary school. There were 11 children in the family, three died in childhood. All children were given a high-quality education, representatives of the local intelligentsia were constantly in the house, conversations were held about art, politics, and the fate of the country. It was in this atmosphere that the boy grew up, who in the future would himself become a prominent representative of the Russian educated nobility. Since childhood, Vincent was engrossed in books; he was especially fond of the adventure genre, especially Mine Read and Starting with adolescence, the future writer actively helped his family every summer; he worked along with the peasants: mowing, plowing, hauling hay, so he knew firsthand the severity of agricultural work.

Studies

Vikenty Veresaev grew up in a family where education was compulsory for everyone. The boy's parents themselves were enlightened people, had an excellent library and instilled a love of learning in their children. Veresaev had very good natural humanitarian inclinations: excellent memory, interest in languages ​​and history. He studied very diligently at the gymnasium, and graduated from each class with an award among the first students. He achieved particular success in his knowledge of ancient languages ​​and began translating at the age of 13. He graduated from the Veresaev gymnasium with a silver medal. In 1884, he entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, from which he graduated with a Candidate of Historical Sciences degree. But his passion for the ideas of populism, the influence of the views of D. Pisarev and N. Mikhailovsky prompted him to enter the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Dorpat (Tartu) in 1888. The young man rightly believed that the medical profession would allow him to “go among the people” and benefit them. While still a student, in 1892 he traveled to the Yekaterinoslav province, where he worked during a cholera epidemic as the head of a sanitary barracks.

Life's twists and turns

In 1894, after graduating from university, Veresaev returned to Tula, where he began working as a doctor. Vikenty Veresaev, whose biography is now connected with medicine, during his medical practice carefully observed the lives of people and took notes, which then became literary works. Thus, the two most important matters of life were intertwined in his life. Two years later, Veresaev moved to St. Petersburg, he was invited as one of the best graduates of the medical faculty to work at the St. Petersburg barracks (future Botkin) hospital for highly infectious patients. For five years he has worked there as a resident and head of the library. In 1901, he went on a long trip around Russia and Europe, he communicated a lot with the leading writers of that time, observed people's lives. In 1903 he moved to Moscow, where he intended to devote himself to literature. With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Vikenty Vikentyevich was mobilized as a doctor, and he became a junior resident in a mobile field hospital in Manchuria. The impressions of that time would later become the theme of several of his works. During the First World War, he was also a military doctor in Kolomna, and was involved in organizing the work of the Moscow military sanitary detachment.

The progressive-minded Veresaev accepted both Russian revolutions; in them he saw a benefit for the country. After the October Revolution, he became chairman of the Artistic and Educational Commission under the Council of Workers' Deputies in Moscow. From 1918 to 1921 he lived in Crimea and witnessed fierce battles between whites and reds; this period of deprivation and hardship will also become a source of stories for literary works. Since 1921, the writer has lived in Moscow, writes and actively participates in educational and organizational activities.

During World War II, an already elderly writer was evacuated to Tbilisi. He managed to see the victory of the USSR in the war and died on June 3, 1945 in Moscow.

First literary experiments

Veresaev Vikenty begins to write at school age; initially the young man saw himself as a poet. His first publication was the poem “Thought,” published under the pseudonym V. Vikentyev in the magazine “Fashionable Light and Fashionable Store” in 1885. Two years later, in the magazine “World Illustration” under the pseudonym Veresaev, he published the story “Riddle”, in which he gives his answers to the main questions of existence: what is happiness and what is the meaning of life. From that time on, literature became Vikenty Vikentyevich’s constant occupation.

Becoming a Master

From the very beginning of his journey in literature, Vikenty Veresaev defined his direction as a path of quest; in his works he reflected the painful tossing of the Russian intelligentsia, which he himself experienced, going from a passion for populism and Marxism to moderate patriotism. He almost immediately realized that poetry was not his path, and turned to prose. At first he tries himself in small forms: writing stories, short stories. In 1892 he published a series of essays “ Underworld» about life and hard work Donetsk miners. Then he first used the pseudonym Veresaev, which became his literary name. In 1894, he published the story “Without a Road,” in which he figuratively tells about the search for the path, the meaning of life by the Russian public and intelligentsia. In 1897, the story “Plague” continues the same theme, documenting the acquisition of a guiding social democratic idea by the younger generation.

Years of glory

In 1901, Veresaev’s “Notes of a Doctor” were published, which brought him fame throughout the country. In them, the writer talks about the path of a young doctor, about those realities of the profession that were usually hushed up, about experiments on patients, about the moral gravity of this work. The work showed Veresaev’s great writing talent, the author’s subtle psychologism and observation skills. Since that time, he has been included in the galaxy of leading writers in the country, along with Garshin and Gorky. The writer's progressive views did not go unnoticed, and the authorities sent him under supervision to Tula to curtail his activity.

In 1904-1906 his notes about Japanese war, in which he speaks almost directly about the need to resist the power of the autocracy. Vikenty Veresaev is also involved in book publishing and is a member of various literary associations. After the revolution, he actively participated in educational work and participated in the publication of new magazines. After the revolution, he turns to large forms and literary criticism Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich. Works in the form of “critical research” about Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche have become a new word in literary prose. The author has always strived to “educate youth”, to transmit high ideals and educational ideas. From his pen come magnificent critical and biographical essays about I. Annensky, A. Chekhov, L. Andreev,

The writer devotes a lot of time to translation activities; many works from ancient Greek poetry were published in his presentation. For them, Veresaev was even awarded Pushkin Prize. Even on his last day, Vikenty Vikentyevich was editing the translation of Homer’s Iliad.

Writer's method

Veresaev Vikenty his writer's destiny linked with " new life", in this he echoes M. Gorky. His writing style is distinguished not only by vivid realism, but also by subtle psychological observations of his own experiences. Autobiographical has become distinctive feature his creativity. He expressed his impressions of life in a series of essays. Worldview quests found their expression in the stories for which Vikenty Veresaev became famous. “Competition”, “Eitimia” and some other stories became his story about personal life and reflections on the feminine ideal.

Most brightly creative essence Veresaeva expressed herself in such works as the novels “At a Dead End” and “Sisters”.

Criticism and reviews

Vikenty Veresaev was quite favorably received by critics during his lifetime; he was noted as a relevant and progressive author. Modern literary scholars rarely turn to the writer’s work, which, however, does not mean that he lacks creative discoveries and talented works. Reviews modern readers also rare, but very supportive. Modern connoisseurs of Veresaev note his magnificent style and consonance with the ideological quests of modern youth.

Private life

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich was constantly absorbed in his work. In life he was a simple and very friendly and welcoming person. He was married to his second cousin Maria Germogenovna. The couple had no children. In general, he lived a prosperous life, filled with work and participation in the organization of educational and creative process in the country.

Vikenty Veresaev

Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich
V
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:
Date of death:
A place of death:
Citizenship:
Occupation:	novelist, translator
Direction:
Awards
Works on Wikisource.

Biography

The work of the writer of this time is a transition from the years. to, from to. In his autobiography, Veresaev writes: “New people came, cheerful and believing. Abandoning hopes for the peasantry, they pointed to a rapidly growing and organizing force in the form of the factory worker, and welcomed capitalism, which created the conditions for the development of this new force. Clandestine work was in full swing, work was going on, circle classes were held with workers, questions of tactics were vividly debated... Many who were not convinced by theory were convinced by practice, including me... In the summer, the famous weaver industry broke out, striking everyone with its numbers, consistency and organization.”

Other books on similar topics: